Four bodies found in house fire

CASWELL — For the second time in as many weeks, Valley firefighters were given the grim task of pulling bodies from the wreckage of a home.

The latest incident was early Tuesday morning in the Caswell Lakes area near Mile 87 of the Parks Highway where four people were found dead in a home on fire.

Mat-Su Borough Emergency Services Director Dennis Brodigan said the home in question has a 200-foot driveway that let out to the highway. A passing motorist noticed the fire, Alaska State Troopers reported.

Troopers had a tough time both identifying the bodies found inside and finding next of kin to notify. Thus it took two days before they released any names. The four people who died in the fire are: Vannaphone Soundara, 43, Azrealle C.D. Stewart, 23, Akson S.T. Soundara, 4, and Kayson J.L. Soundara, 1.

Troopers say not all of the family members died in the fire, but they declined to elaborate.

Brodigan said that there was very little, if anything, firefighters could do about the blaze.

“It was one of our Caswell fire responders who was the first on the scene. His size-up was a 20 by 40 structure fully involved and on the ground,” Brodigan said. “Meaning it had already collapsed in on itself.”

He said that means firefighters fought the fire defensively to keep it from spreading, which was itself a difficult task.

“There were a lot of exposures so there were a couple of fuel tanks, I think one fuel tank and one heating oil,” Brodigan said. “And then there were two vehicles and both of them were on fire.”

The first fire fatality of the month came Nov. 3 when 6-year-old Hayden Martin died in a fire on Heather Way just north of Wasilla. His grandmother was home at the time and made it out alive.

As for the fire in Caswell, Soundara has a history of domestic violence, as outlined in an Alaska Court of Appeals case from 2005. The case stemmed from a 2000 criminal case in which Soundara was convicted of assault and kidnapping.

In that case, Soundara tied up his “common-law wife” — not Stewart — with speaker wire. He hit her as the couple’s two children cried in the nearby bedroom, at times pistol-whipping her and hitting her with the butt and the dull side of a knife.

“Soundara told (the woman) that if she left him after this, he would shoot their children, set fire to them, and then kill himself,” appeals court justice David Mannheimer wrote in that case.

Court records show Stewart filed for divorce from Soundara in late October. The case had not yet had a hearing in court.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.