ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY, Mo. – Family and friends said 5-year-old Peighton Peterson died inside her home when it caught fire Tuesday morning around 2:00 a.m. Peighton and her parents, Tori and James, were sleeping when the home caught fire.
“My daughter called me at 2:30 this morning just hysterical screaming that their house was on fire,” John Snider, Tori’s dad and Peighton’s grandfather, told FOX 2. “My daughter had to jump out the window from the bedroom and my son-in-law went around, he came out of the bedroom and tried to get to my granddaughter’s room and he just couldn’t make it to her.”
Peighton turned 5 on Jan. 12.
“She was my world. She was my everything. She was a smart, bright, funny girl. She loved everybody, she never met a stranger, and everybody loved her,” Snider said. “She’s going to be very, very missed.”
Snider said Tori and James are both in St. John’s Mercy Burn Center in St. Louis. James is in a medically-induced coma. Tori went to check on her husband when she was admitted to the hospital for her own injuries. Tori hasn’t been able to tell her husband that their daughter died in the fire.
Friends set up a GoFundMe to help with funeral and medical expenses. Meanwhile, the family is asking for prayers.
“When a child is gone like this, there are no words,” Shonda Bristol, a family friend, said. “Peighton was a fun-loving, sassy little girl. She never met a stranger, she loved her princesses, Pokémon.”
Snider said the fire marshal told him it appears the fire started in a kitchen trash can but it is still under investigation.
