UPDATE: WTNH is reporting Alyce Sapko, mother of Tania Sapko, has identified the remains found in the garage fire as her daughter.
Original post follows:
A body found in the rubble of a garage fire in Seymour Wednesday was a female who died of smoke inhalation, the town’s fire marshal said Thursday (Aug. 1).
But it will be some time before authorities know for sure whether the remains found were those of Tania Sapko, the woman living at the house, the fire marshal, Paul Wetowitz, said.
“There was an autopsy done this morning. Cause of death of was smoke inhalation,” Wetowitz said. “It is a female, but we need to use DNA records in order to make a positive ID. That may take several weeks.”
Asked if there was any news as to Sapko’s whereabouts since the fire, Wetowitz said: “No updates.”
The autopsy was performed at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington, Wetowitz said.
The Waiting
Meanwhile, Sapko’s friends, such as Kim Lewis of Beacon Falls, endure the tortuous wait to find out whether the remains are, in fact, Sapko.
Lewis has known Sapko for 42 years.
The two were 12-year-old classmates at Seymour Middle School. Lewis said Sapko worked as a research assistant at Yale University.
Lewis described Sapko as an animal-lover who was “generous to a fault,” as well as “very caring, very supportive, a good listener, just a good friend.”
And very smart.
“She does crossword puzzles in pen,” Lewis said.
Sapko moved to the Davis Road property in 2001, Lewis said, after previously living in New York City and Washington, D.C.
The two graduated from Seymour High School in 1975, Lewis said, but still kept in touch and would see each other monthly.
“I just can’t believe it,” Lewis recalled thinking when she first read news reports about the fire Wednesday. “I read Davis Road and my heart fell.”
“I keep calling her phone thinking she’s going to pick up,” Lewis said. “Until I know for sure I’m trying to hold out hope, but I don’t know who it could be.”
The Fire
How and precisely where the fire started remains a mystery, Wetowitz said, because of the fact that the garage where the body was found was reduced to ashes.
Article continues after photos.
“There’s just too much damage,” Wetowitz said. “We cannot make a determination with the fire’s cause and origin because there’s too much damage.”
Wetowitz said that in itself isn’t unusual “if a structure is that significantly damaged and you simply don’t have any physical evidence to point toward anything.”
“I don’t see that changing,” the fire marshal went on. “We’re following up with some information, we’re following up with some family members, but I don’t see that assisting with making a confirmed determination.”
Authorities brought a dog to the property Wednesday to see if it could sniff out any sign of accelerants being used to start the fire, but Wetowitz said there were no indications of foul play.
Firefighters were first called to the home, at 105 Davis Road, about 1:40 a.m. Wednesday on a report of a structure fire.
They arrived to find the garage of the one-story home fully engulfed in flames which shot 50 to 75 feet into the air.
About 50 firefighters from Seymour and Oxford doused the flames after about a half-hour.
While doing overhaul work, they found a body in the garage.
The damage wrought by the fire was so extensive investigators were unable to determine even whether the remains were male or female until Thursday’s autopsy.
Wetowitz said Thursday that the burns to the body were so severe that dental records could not be used to identify it.
“DNA is the only way in order to make a confirmed determination here,” he said.
The case is being investigated by Wetowitz’s office, personnel from the state fire marshal’s office, and Seymour police.
