The mother of two small girls who perished in a Canton rowhouse fire 10 days ago confessed to authorities that she intentionally ignited the blaze to kill the children, court records show.
At a bail hearing yesterday at Central District Court, Renee Elizabeth Aulton, 26, of the 2300 block of Fleet St. was ordered held without bail pending a bail-review hearing today at the Eastside District Court.
Ms. Aulton is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree arson.
Court Commissioner Cheryl Alston said Ms. Aulton appeared at the brief proceeding "quiet and didn't say very much."
The defendant did ask "if she was staying here overnight," the commissioner said.
Police said the woman is being held pending her bail review at the women's lockup at Central District.
In a statement made during what investigators said was interrogation spread over about six hours Wednesday, Ms. Aulton reportedly admitted to homicide Detective Al Marcus that she killed her daughters Christina Lambert, 4, and Natalie Aulton, 2.
A text of the statement was not available, however.
But the statement of charges made public yesterday read: "On 23 Nov. 1994 Rene Aulton gave a statement to police detectives wherein she reported that she purposely started the fire in her home with the intent to kill Natalie Aulton and Christina Lambert."
Ms. Aulton could face the death penalty under Maryland law because the fire was intentionally set and two people died. City State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms did not respond yesterday to a telephone message left at his home.
Sources familiar with the investigation have said that the girls were killed because Ms. Aulton believed her boyfriend was unhappy because one of them was of mixed race -- something the man pointedly denied in an interview late Wednesday.
Officer Robert Weinhold, a city police spokesman, said yesterday he would not discuss details of the investigation.
But he did say that it appeared Ms. Aulton was not inspired by a mother charged with the murder of her two young children in Union, S. C., last month -- with a boyfriend's purported negative feelings about a ready-made family reportedly being a motivation.
There, Susan Smith is charged with murder in the drowning of her two young sons, who were strapped into their car seats when she reportedly let her car roll down a boat ramp into a lake Oct. 25. Police say the mother confessed to the crime nine days later, recanting her claim that the children had been taken in
a carjacking.
The Sun learned yesterday that Ms. Aulton had been the subject of two "child protective services" investigations by the Baltimore City Department of Social Services.
Sue Fitzsimmons, spokeswoman for the agency, confirmed those investigations.
She said the most recent one, begun after the agency received a report on Oct. 7, concluded on Oct. 24. Ms. Fitzsimmons said she is forbidden by law to discuss the details of the investigations or reveal whether they confirmed any allegations of neglect or abuse.
She said the agency also investigated Ms. Aulton in May and June of 1988 -- two years before the birth of Christina Lambert, the older of the two girls who died in the fire.
Officer Weinhold, the police spokesman, confirmed that Ms. Aulton has another child who is not in her custody.
Court documents that became public yesterday showed Ms. Aulton as a woman who has had minor brushes with the law while moving from place to place. Since 1988 she has had addresses in Arnold, Edgewater, Easton and at least three in the Baltimore area, according to court records and interviews.
A man who answered the telephone yesterday at an address in the 1600 block of Woodtree Court in Arnold said, "The family's not making any comment at this time."
Ms. Aulton gave an Arnold address in 1988 after being charged with battery and vandalism. The details of those charges, which were placed on the inactive docket, were not available yesterday.
In 1989, she gave an address in Easton after being charged with battery. The disposition of that case was not available yesterday.
Documents filed yesterday with the murder charges listed an address for Ms. Aulton in the 1300 block of Patapsco Ave., as well as the Fleet Street address. Ms. Aulton and her two children also lived in September in a $100-a-month first-floor apartment in a Dundalk house, said Betty Weber, who said she met the family last summer.
She said Ms. Aulton and her children were evicted from the apartment in late September or early October. She said the last time she saw Ms. Aulton, she was crying in the back yard, with her meager possessions filling only a couple of bags.
"Renee was really having problems, from what I could see, moving from here to there with nobody to take care of her or her children," Ms. Weber said. "She wasn't just a little tramp who wanted her kids out of the way."