Kevin Raven stayed occupied Saturday. Focusing on his raking and maintaining his front yard and not the boarded up house across the street where his friend for decades Larry Davis lived until a house fire Friday took his life.
“He was a kind, big-hearted generous guy,” said Raven. “One in a million. One of a kind.”
“We tried to get him out of there,” said friend Donald Laury. “There were six or seven of us.”
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Laury lives a couple blocks away but talked to Davis almost every day. They sat on each others porches and as fellow military veterans who each had about 20 grandchildren, they shared a bond.
“We seemed to really click together,” said Laury. “He was a beautiful guy. He had a million dollar smile.”
Davis' next door neighbor was fond of him, too and was home when the fire started Friday evening.
“Something went off like a bomb,” said Lillian Chiles.
Fort Worth arson investigators say it may have sounded like one but there’s no evidence of a bomb, arson or any other type of explosion. They say the boom was likely the sound of the utility meter outside malfunctioning after catching on fire.
“I’m real upset because I can’t believe what happened,” said Chiles. “I don’t know what happened to him in the house.”
Investigators say there was a hot plate in the area where the fire started but it's unclear if that's what ignited it. At the point the cause is undetermined.
