Eight days after her two small girls died in a fire that gutted their Canton rowhouse, the youngsters' mother was charged last night with killing them in what police sources said was an apparent effort to keep her relationship with a boyfriend together.
Accused of first-degree murder and arson is Renee Aulton, 26, of the 2300 block of Fleet St. Ms. Aulton was being held in the police lockup for women last night, pending a hearing.
On Nov. 15, firefighters found Christina Lambert, 4, and her sister, Natalie Aulton, 2, dead in their second-floor bedroom. The state medical examiner said they were in bed, lying on their backs. Both were alive when the fire started, officials said.
Investigators said the fire apparently started in a closet near the children's bedroom.
Officially, police declined to give a motive, but one police source close to the investigation gave this account:
Ms. Aulton told investigators that she believed her boyfriend disliked 2-year-old Natalie because she was of mixed race. The killings, the source said, were an effort to keep the relationship intact.
At a news conference last night, police outlined the charges but declined to discuss what evidence they had or what the accused may have told them. Police said no one else has been charged or implicated, but they said the investigation was continuing.
"Certainly this can be characterized as a heinous crime," said Robert Weinhold, a police spokesman. "The emotional aspect of it, yes, hits everyone at home."
Under state law, Ms. Aulton could face the death penalty because two people died, and because the deaths occurred in an arson fire.
From the beginning, police found the girls' deaths suspicious. The source said police found it significant that the two little girls .. had not tried to escape the blaze. That led authorities to suspect the children may have been drugged.
Investigators said the girls died of smoke inhalation but that there was no evidence of other injuries. Police did not release results of toxicology tests.
Col. Ronald L. Daniel, chief of the police department's Criminal Investigation Bureau, said the charges were based on physical evidence at the scene and inconsistent statements by Ms. Aulton.
Homicide detectives interviewed Ms. Aulton several times after the fire, including a six-hour session yesterday.
"It raised our suspicions that she may have had more knowledge of the incident than she was telling us," said Mr. Weinhold, who said Ms. Aulton has taken a polygraph test, but results "have not been finalized."
Immediately after the fire, Ms. Aulton told police that she was in the home when the blaze broke out. She said she managed to escape but was unable to save her children. She was taken by ambulance to Church Hospital but suffered no injuries.
At the time, however, neighbors said that Ms. Aulton was seen returning to the house after it was engulfed in flames.
News of Ms. Aulton's arrest did not surprise neighbors in the Southeast Baltimore community.
"You're shocked but you're not surprised," remarked Rosemary Banaszewski, 43.
Sylvia Kirby, 24, lives two houses away from the Aulton house.
"I couldn't believe that someone would do that," she said. "The person you must trust in your whole entire life turns out to hurt you."
Ms. Aulton's boyfriend, Frank J. Wooters, said yesterday that he was startled to learn of the charges against his girlfriend.
"I loved them kids," Mr. Wooters said. "If I had anything against Natalie because she was half-black, I would never have gotten together with [Ms. Aulton]."
He said he has been going out with Ms. Aulton for 14 months
and had been planning a future with her. Yesterday, though, he expressed nothing but anger.
"As far as I'm concerned, the [woman] can rot in hell," he said.
In a tearful interview, Mr. Wooters gave an account of the fire that differed from that of neighbors. He said he tried his best to save the girls.
He said the blaze started shortly before he arrived at the house on the afternoon of Nov. 15. He said Ms. Aulton screamed from the second-floor window that the house was on fire, but managed to run downstairs to open the door for him.
"As soon as I got in she yelled, 'The house is on fire and my babies are upstairs,' " he recalled.
Mr. Wooters said he went upstairs but had to retreat after being overcome by smoke. He said he wrapped a rag around his face, trying not to inhale the smoke, and made a second attempt to rescue the children.
When he got upstairs, he said, "All I could see was flames. I knew from that point that the kids were dead."
But Amin Khdeir, owner of a liquor store at 2300 Fleet St., said he did not see Mr. Wooters until firefighters arrived.
Mr. Khdeir said he and four other men tried to get inside the house after hearing the woman screaming as she ran out of the house. He said the men could not get past the smoke.
Richard W. Smith, a chef at Fins restaurant across the street, said he saw a barefoot Ms. Aulton approaching the house, screaming for help.
"She looked up at the house and she said, "Oh my God. my babies are in there,'" Mr. Smith recalled.
Before the fire, Ms. Aulton lived with her two children at Booth House, a Salvation Army shelter in Mount Vernon, according to several residents.
She returned there to live after the fire, according to one of the residents, who declined to divulge her name without approval from the shelter's operator.
The resident said Ms. Aulton did not seem especially upset. She said Ms. Aulton would chat with other residents by the front desk or smoke cigarettes with them in the yard behind the shelter -- something she found unusual.
"If it was me, I would have wanted to be alone," she said.