He told his children he was coming to save them. He never made it. ‘I know they were scared to death’

Trevor McIsaac screamed for his kids.

We're here," they cried from across the hall. Their mother was silent.

I told them to get down and try to get your mom up; that I was coming to get them," he said. I know they were scared to death."

The two-storey house on Hamilton's east Mountain was ablaze. The heat was unbearable. Smoke was everywhere.

I tried to get across to the kids, but the heat was so intense. It was insane," the father said, describing the harrowing moments through tears. My body wouldn't even allow me to go across."

The smoke filled his room, thick and black. He tried desperately to find the bedroom door.

I couldn't even breathe."

He never heard his children's voices again.

They were so young," he said, sobbing, during a recent interview with The Spectator. We'd just done our Christmas that day."

Lambeau McIsaac, 8, Khaleesi McIsaac, 7, and their mother, Kassie Chrysler, 40, died in that house fire at 14 Derby St., Unit 4, on Dec. 29. A fourth person, William (Bill) Davies, McIsaac's roommate, also died.

Photos from the scene following the fire show an open second-storey window at the front of the house, from which McIsaac said he and a friend, who was staying with him and was in his room at the time, escaped onto the pitched roof over the garage.

The back of the house, where the kids and their mother were sleeping, was black, the siding charred from top to bottom.

Today, people have as little as 60 seconds to get out of a burning house, fire authorities say. Once, it might have taken 10 minutes for a house to become consumed by flames, said Dave Cunliffe, chief of the Hamilton Fire Department. But modern-day synthetic materials burn hotter and faster: It's now down to minutes."

The Derby Street blaze started in an upholstered couch on the main floor, but the fire marshal hasn't yet said what caused it. All six occupants - McIsaac, Chrysler and the two children, as well as a roommate and a friend - were upstairs at the time. The investigation is ongoing.

The question of smoke alarms is just one of the many that hang over this tragedy.

There were no working smoke alarms in the house, authorities say, when the house was engulfed in flames. With warning, the four who died may have lived.

Valery Homes, the property management company, says it tests smoke detectors regularly. They told The Spectator the tenants had removed them. But McIsaac said the company hadn't checked them since his mother, who died in September 2021, signed a lease in 2014. He also said he and his roommate never removed the smoke detectors.

Local fire authorities said in January they were looking to pursue charges" against the townhome's owner, Valery Homes, who under the Ontario Fire Code is responsible for ensuring smoke alarms are installed and in working condition.

Authorities have not confirmed whether or not charges have been laid.

The cause of the fire is unknown. McIsaac wonders if it could have been a fibre-optic Christmas tree in the living room. Or a cigarette? Both McIsaac and his house guest were smokers, but McIsaac said he usually prohibited smoking when the kids visited.

The fire marshal's office says the investigation is ongoing.

But the larger issue of the long, sad road that led to this calamity lingers.

Chrysler and her children lived in a low-rise apartment building on Melrose Avenue South, a residential street that runs between Barton Street East and Main Street East in the city's east end. The building's unlocked front entrance opens into a tiny foyer, with a few short steps up to the first floor, where Chrysler and her kids lived.

The night of the fire, the trio spent the night at McIsaac's Derby Street townhouse on the Mountain, a common occurrence.

Extreme situation'

For Chrysler's landlord in east Hamilton, this was a tragic end to a tragic life, based on living conditions he observed for Chrysler and the kids.

The state of Chrysler's apartment was unbelievable," said Ned Janjic, who, after 40 years of being a landlord, isn't surprised by much.

Janjic described horrific" living conditions when he cleared out the apartment after their deaths: All the windows were broken. There were bags of garbage everywhere. The mattresses were soiled a dark brown. They had two small dogs that tenants in the 12-unit building heard, but never saw.

The dogs soiled the apartment for four years," he said. Kids were living in this situation."

Eight or nine truckloads" of garbage were removed from the apartment and taken to the dump after Chrysler's tenancy was terminated following the 30-day period after death required by the province.

We just put up a flatbed in front of the front windows and just shovelled everything right out," he said.

Photos taken between Jan. 30 and Feb. 1 shared with The Spectator by the Melrose landlord show piles of garbage, some in black bags and some loose. In one room, the floor is completely concealed by clothes, toys and empty boxes.

Several windows appear boarded up, one partially covered by a door, another with plywood and other scrap material. The bathtub is filled to the lip with a door, bucket, clothes, broken glasses and an action figure hidden underneath.

A stuffed horse, a Scooby-Doo suitcase and a cutout of a heart fixed to a white piece of paper - a kids' craft or card, perhaps - serve as reminder of little lives lost.

Chrysler's brother, Wesley Genereaux, said their families usually got together at their mom's place, so he didn't know how bad the apartment was until he helped clean it out in January.

You could see into the basement from the first floor," he said, describing a moment in which someone downstairs looked up at him through a hole on the floor beside the toilet. The house was falling to pieces."

He blames the landlord for the sorry state of the apartment, claiming he only started doing repairs after Chrysler died.

The apartment was atrocious," McIsaac agreed, with mould and bugs - bedbugs and cockroaches that scattered when they switched on the lights. A construction worker by trade, McIsaac said he used to fix things himself when he lived there.

Nobody should live there," he acknowledged. But he also felt his ex-partner knew how to handle her own" and was withholding rent until repairs were done.

Janjic said damage to the unit, like smashed windows, was so frequent, he stopped doing repairs. McIsaac, he said, would take a bedroom door, cut it in half and bolt it over the window."

Post-renovation photos shared with The Spec show clean floors, freshly painted walls, a new Frigidaire stove and windows with blinds.

Regardless of who was to blame, there were kids living in those conditions - and Janjic wonders why no one was able to protect them.

He claims there were other issues, too.

The landlord says there were various incidents there involving police. Drug use. Property damage. Friends sleeping on the back deck in the summer. An uninvited guest defecating outside the apartment door.

I have a lot of friends, I shouldn't be punished for that," McIsaac contended.

When asked by The Spec, Hamilton police said a search of calls to the building would take significant resources and meets the threshold of a freedom-of-information request."

More than once, tenants found the kids in the hallway in the early-morning hours and were met with silence when they knocked on Chrysler's door, Janjic said.

Several times, alarms in the hallway would sound after smoke from Chrysler's apartment escaped into the hallways. Burnt popcorn was a common explanation, but Janjic didn't buy it.

The landlord banned McIsaac - who wasn't officially a tenant, but lived there - from the building several years ago.

McIsaac said he was run off" the Melrose property following altercations with Chrysler. He blamed meddling" neighbours and a nosy" landlord for calling the police unnecessarily.

Janjic tried to evict Chrysler several times for both property damage and failure to pay - in fact, there was an outstanding application at the time of her death - but occasional repayments and slow legal processes ensured she was never successfully evicted.

As of Dec. 26, 2022, a few days before she died, Kassie owed more than $13,000 in rent arrears according to an order from the Landlord and Tenant Board on Jan. 27.

Janjic said he called the local Children's Aid Society dozens of times.

All I had to say was Kassie Chrysler,' and they all knew," he said, adding that he never knew what came of those calls.

McIsaac has flaws, and he's quick to admit to them.

He's been in jail a lot," he says - for fighting and break-and-enters, among other crimes - and had an on-again, off-again relationship with Chrysler that wasn't always happy.

Lambeau was in foster care with a family in Dundas for the first year of his life, McIsaac explained, because his then-partner had had past dealings" with children's aid.

They just wanted to make sure our parenting was on track," he said. We got him back as soon as we went to court, and he's been home ever since."

Children's aid workers would check in once or twice a year, but they never took the kids, the father said, describing the organization as pretty lenient."

Janjic wonders why Chrysler and her kids weren't receiving more support from police and social services agencies. How do you guys think this is going to end?" he would often say.

In the meantime, two kids die," he said. How does anyone expect those kids to stand a chance?"

Living is hard

Sitting at a window table of a Tim Hortons on Barton Street East, McIsaac sips a vanilla milkshake, keeping a watchful eye on his unlocked black BMX leaning on a stand outside. He starts to talk about April 4, what would have been his son's ninth birthday. But, instead of words, tears surface.

Through them, the heartbroken father manages:

It was rough," McIsaac said. Every day is."

Living is hard, McIsaac says. He lives with the memories of his kids' young lives and the trauma of a house ablaze. He also lives with the fact that he survived.

McIsaac, who was never on the lease, is now homeless, sleeping on friends' couches. He has no ambition anymore."

I don't want to do anything," he said.

McIsaac's two adult children - and the news of a grandchild on the way - keep him going.

Khaleesi would have loved to be an aunt," he said.

In an interview with The Spec earlier this year, McIsaac pulled a stack of photos from his backpack, the first of Lambeau, sporting a jersey from his namesake team, the Green Bay Packers. In others, he and his sister are dressed up for Halloween, his dad's favourite holiday.

Lambeau was all superheroes," he said, adding that his son was crazy about Spider-Man.

In a Facebook post, McIsaac referred to his son as his twin."

He was a nut just like I am. He was always good for a laugh," the father said.

The kids went to school at Adelaide Hoodless Elementary School in Hamilton's east end near their mom's Melrose apartment, but McIsaac said they visited him at his home often - daily during some stretches.

Khaleesi, in particular, liked to visit Castro, her dad's Havana rabbit, who also died in the fire.

The seven-year-old, born Sept. 25, 2015, at the height of popularity for the TV series Game of Thrones," loved animals and princesses. Her dad had gifted her a blue cape like the one worn by Elsa from Disney's Frozen" the day she died.

Khaleesi was so smart. I'd get new cellphones and she'd set them up for me," he said.

Her dad, in turn, taught his kids to draw. As McIsaac spoke, he sketched - a cartoon character with his mouth ajar, a banana with eyes and a skinny cow - on Tim Hortons napkins in colourful artists' markers, which he usually keeps with him.

I can draw for hours," he said, explaining that cartoons and tattoos - including many of his own - are his specialties. I used to draw pictures of the kids, making them do something weird."

Melrose neighbour Cheryl Villeneuve said she and others in the community would occasionally take the kids on trips to the store. Khaleesi loved the milkshakes at Big Bee Convenience, a five-minute walk from the building, while Lambeau always got a bag of chips or candy." Villeneuve described their mom as a quiet" person who stuck to herself." Chrysler's relationships with others in the building were limited to their kids. Neighbours occasionally picked Lambeau and Khaleesi up from school.

Chrysler was born Nov. 11, 1982. She had just turned 40, a mid-life milestone that for many marks a new chapter. Instead, her story ended soon after.

Chrysler grew up in Hagersville before moving to Brantford and later to Hamilton when her brother was a toddler. The siblings' mother is from Six Nations, where her brother Wesley now lives on inherited land, their dad from Saskatoon.

More than 10 years her junior, the 30-year-old Wesley said he and his sister had grown closer as adults. Wesley even lived with Chrysler for five or six years when he first moved out of his mom's place.

He describes his sister as assertive."

When she believed something, that was it," he said. My whole family's like that, we're all stubborn."

For the last several years, she'd been into fixing computers, he said.

At one point she worked at Tim Hortons in Burlington, but she'd been a stay-at-home mom for years. She has three surviving children, two are adults and one who was adopted, her brother said.

She didn't drive, so she used public transit and cabs to get around the city.

In the days after the fire, her mom, Wendy Genereaux, told The Spectator the family wasn't the wealthy kind," but shared what they had.

We're not a perfect family, but there were moments," she said in a Jan. 4 interview.

The single mother was broke," relying on social assistance and support from McIsaac and family to make ends meet, Wesley said.

She was always a good mom and stuff, it was just she didn't ever work really," he said. She never really had any real money to be like, Hey, let's go do something.'"

Wesley, who works in construction, said he had come into his role as uncle to her kids, often taking them to Gage Park, monster truck rallies and festivals around the city. Lambeau and Khaleesi were always together" and could often be found starring in self-directed movies recorded on a tablet, he said.

The uncle had always had a relationship with Lambeau, older and a boy, but quieter Khaleesi took longer to warm up.

We started to get along more just as she passed. It sucks," he said.

The night of the fire

The kids were never supposed to be at the Derby Street home the night of the fatal fire.

The townhouse is one of about 50 in a complex off Rymal Road East near Upper Gage. The homes, some owned, some rented, share walls and driveways.

After the fire, rumours about a possible meth lab" in the townhouse quickly circulated among neighbours and on social media. McIsaac refuted them, chalking it up to neighbourhood gossip.

If there was a meth lab, what am I doing walking on the street still?" McIsaac said.

What eats at McIsaac is that the kids should have been at their mom's. He says Chrysler told him she was taking the kids home at 5 p.m., since McIsaac was feeling unwell.

They said they were going to go home and they'd come back up on New Year's Eve," he said. They never did. I don't understand why."

Now homeless and jobless, McIsaac spent the winter months in a recurring hell, chopping firewood to heat the trailer he shares with Wesley to avoid being frozen solid."

It's hard for me, because I hate fire," he said. But you've got to stay warm."

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com