In 2005 I wrote about Eddie Hanson, a local homeless man who died in a fire. He and another homeless man were inside a vacant house on the city’s north end looking for food. Eddie lit a fire so they could see. The fire got out of control, and Eddie was overcome and died. The other man escaped.

Authorities seek fire victim’s family / Identified as 41-year-old homeless man
June 9, 2005

Authorities need help finding the family of a homeless man who died Tuesday night when fire tore through the abandoned house in which he’d been squatting.

People who knew him said Edward R. Hanson, 41, worked day- labor jobs but did not talk about his family, according to Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone.

Officials have determined that he was born in Hawaii and are contacting people in that state with the same last name.

One Web-based people finder shows 126 people in Hawaii with the last name of Hanson, while another shows more than 200.

“It’s only right and proper (that we try to find his family),” Boone said following Wednesday morning’s autopsy, which showed Hanson died of smoke inhalation and burns.

“We are going to pursue as much as we can. It’s almost like looking for a needle in a haystack with that many people by that name in Hawaii. Where do you start? We’re going to try, and anybody here who knows anything about his family, it would be helpful.”

Hanson’s body was found in a bedroom of an abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. after it caught fire about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday. The cause and origin of the fire was still being investigated Wednesday afternoon, according to Bob Reside, spokesman for the Springfield Fire Department.

Hanson had no driver’s license or other form of ID on him. Authorities obtained a tentative identification and were able to combine that with his fingerprints to confirm his identity. They took photographs of him to homeless shelters Wednesday morning trying to get information about his background and possible next of kin.

“Every lead we’ve had indicated that he had family, but he didn’t want to talk about his family,” Boone said. “People who did know him and the places where he worked, people did not know of his family. But we were told that he actually was a … good worker and a nice person.”

Dispatchers began getting phone calls about 9:50 p.m. Tuesday reporting the fire. When firefighters arrived, they found the house ablaze with flames showing from all the windows and openings in the building.

The house is tucked away on a short dead-end section of 11th Street. It has a large front setback, while all the neighboring homes sit closer to the street. The front yard is overgrown, and fencing surrounds the property. A railroad track runs behind the home.

Firefighters found the interior walls were brick covered with plaster, indicating it might have been a particularly old house, Reside said.

According to neighbors, the elderly man who formerly lived in the house had health problems and entered a nursing home earlier this year. Most of his belongings, including clothing, were still in the house.

It is unclear why family or friends of the previous resident had not cleaned out the house or taken care of it. Brent Lucas, who has lived next door for more than four years, said he complained to the city health department about two weeks ago after noticing animals, such as opossums, mice and cats, coming and going through a window of the abandoned house.

He also saw two homeless men enter the house Sunday and told them they shouldn’t be staying there. He said he believes a bank took ownership of the house at some point.

“I was going to call them (the health department) again, and then this happened,” Lucas said. “This could have all been avoided.”

City records indicate building officials inspected the house March 15, and notices prohibiting occupancy were posted.

Firefighters got the fire under control within about 20 minutes Tuesday night.

Firefighters found Hanson’s body when they went back inside to check the structure.

Utilities had been turned off, so investigators do not believe gas or electricity was to blame for the fire.

Hanson’s body was not found in the room where the fire apparently began, Reside said, but he declined to elaborate.

“We’re still looking into what caused it. Obviously, it’s suspicious in nature, but was it accidental or on purpose, we don’t know,” he said.

Hanson had several run-ins with law enforcement, according to Sangamon County court records. He had been arrested at least 14 times for trespassing.

In 1997, he was found unconscious, bloody and badly beaten inside his motel room at the Bel-Aire Motel, 2636 S. Sixth St. He was rushed to Memorial Medical Center with what was considered a life-threatening head wound. Police never revealed a motive for the attack.

In June 2004, The State Journal-Register reported that police had sprayed Hanson with pepper spray after he became belligerent toward officers investigating a report of a suspicious person in an alley in the 1300 block of South Eighth Street. Police found three homeless men drinking in the alley. Hanson allegedly walked up and began yelling obscenities at the officers and then refused to comply with their commands.

Friends of homeless man lost to fire say he wouldn’t accept help
June 10, 2005

Eddie Hanson wouldn’t accept help from anyone and rarely spoke about his childhood or family, those who knew him said Thursday.

And while no one disputes he had a bad addiction to alcohol, they are quick to say he was a nice person who once put the only money to his name – the two pennies he had in a pocket – in a church collection plate.

Hanson, 41, died Tuesday night when fire tore through the abandoned house he had been staying in at 1826 N. 11th St.

Springfield Fire Department spokesman Bob Reside said in a statement Thursday evening that investigators have made a preliminary determination of the cause of the fire. Their findings will be disclosed today, Reside said.

Employees at the Sangamon County coroner’s office were working diligently Thursday to locate Hanson’s next of kin, but were having little luck.

“I tried to get help for him a long time ago. Now I want to make sure he gets a proper burial,” said Mike Hubbard, who knew Hanson for years. The two shared a house on West Reynolds Street for some time after Hubbard went through a divorce.

Hubbard couldn’t explain why Hanson was homeless.

“He was just like that,” he said. “His dad owned a hotel in Honolulu. I even tried to get him to see if we could contact his mom or dad a month or two ago, when I talked to him. I was going to try to get him some public aid help or Social Security disability, but he didn’t want to. He was like a brother to me.”

Hubbard said he believes Hanson’s mother lived in Texas at one time, but Hanson rarely spoke of her or other family members.

Hanson did stay at the Helping Hands homeless shelter from time to time, according to one woman who said he occasionally would drink coffee with her and a few others early in the mornings before they all went their separate ways for the day.

He’d been in the Sangamon County Jail as recently as May 11, when he was discharged after being jailed overnight for disorderly conduct.

Hanson had had several run-ins with police and was arrested at least 14 times for trespassing, which is what he was doing when the abandoned house on 11th Street caught fire about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday.

City officials inspected the house March 15 and posted notices prohibiting occupancy. But Hanson and other homeless people regularly came and went from the building, which still contained the former resident’s clothes, medical equipment and other belongings.

The resident, an elderly man, entered a nursing home in Petersburg several months ago because of failing health, neighbors said.

Neighbors reported seeing animals going in and out of windows at the abandoned house, which has an overgrown yard and a large setback from 11th Street. A railroad track runs behind the building.

In May 1997, Hanson was found unconscious, bloody and badly beaten inside his motel room at the Bel-Aire Motel, 2636 S. Sixth St. He was rushed to Memorial Medical Center with what was considered a life-threatening head wound. Police never revealed a motive for the attack.

Hanson, who moved to Springfield about 1994, at one time was a carnival worker, but he was a roofer at the time of the 1997 attack, according to Hubbard.

“I tried to have him get hold of his family and he wouldn’t do it. I tried to get him help because he got beat so bad in that hotel. He was in bad shape,” he said, adding that he believes Hanson recently had been running with a bad crowd of people. “It’s just sad.”

Ralph McCarty, an associate pastor at Christian Assembly Church, 2105 Reservoir St., became acquainted with Hanson several months ago, when Hanson began showing up for Sunday evening worship services and spending the night behind the church.

McCarty, who put out a pillow and blanket for Hanson to sleep on, said Hanson once explained that he liked to sleep there because no one bothered him.

He said Hanson always was alert during church services and paid attention to what was going on around him.

“He was not one of those people who came in to see what they could rack up,” he said, adding that Hanson from time to time would offer change for the church collection plate.

Hanson would not talk about his childhood with McCarty, but did mention that his parents had divorced when they lived in Hawaii and that he, his mother and his brother then moved to Texas.

McCarty said he tried to get Hanson an apartment, but a lot of people wouldn’t rent to him because of his drinking.

“He was really a good guy. He had a serious problem with drinking. I think he needed medical attention for his alcohol problem. I was thankful we had some time to spend talking. But as a homeless person, he never asked for nothing,” McCarty said. “Truly, in my heart, I believe he wanted to change, but just couldn’t.”

Janette Boedigheimer, a deputy Sangamon County coroner, said the coroner’s staff has been doing a lot of footwork in trying to locate Hanson’s family. They did learn Hanson’s parents’ names.

“We do have a couple of leads, but we don’t have anything confirmed yet,” she said. “We’re getting bits and pieces from different people. I’ve called some other agencies and gotten some things from them. We’re trying to look at the big picture, and trying to narrow it down. We’re hoping to find somebody who can lead us to the family somehow.”

Fire victim set blaze himself / Needed light to search for food in abandoned house
June 11, 2005

The homeless man who died in a house fire Tuesday night set the fire himself in an attempt to create light so he and another man could search for food, investigators said Friday.

Meanwhile, city homeless shelter officials expressed frustration Friday that they were unable to do more to prevent such a tragedy from happening.

Springfield Fire Department investigators said the second homeless man came forward to tell them what caused the blaze that ultimately killed Edward R. Hanson, 41. That man, who has not been named, could be charged with trespassing but has not been arrested.

The two entered the abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. and were looking for canned goods about 9:45 p.m. The second man went into the kitchen, and Hanson went into a front bedroom, presumably to see what he could find there.

The front room was the location of the only possible exit, investigators said.

Hanson started a small fire to create light to see by, but it quickly grew, investigators said. The second man saw the fire getting out of control and ran past the flames and out of the house. Hanson tried to get out through a bedroom window, but was unable to escape before being overcome by smoke.

The second man told investigators he could hear Hanson screaming for help, but was unable to assist him.

Firefighters arrived to find flames shooting out all the windows and openings of the house, which city building inspectors posted with occupancy-prohibited signs after a March 15 inspection.

After extinguishing the fire, firefighters checking the structure found Hanson’s body in the bedroom. Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone pronounced him dead at 10:22 p.m. An autopsy Wednesday showed he died of smoke inhalation and burns.

It was not immediately known if Hanson, who reportedly had an alcohol addiction, was intoxicated at the time of the fire.

Acquaintances of Hanson said he moved to Springfield about 1994. On Friday, the coroner’s office still was trying to locate his next of kin to notify them of Hanson’s death. It is believed he was born in Hawaii and moved to Texas with his mother and brother after his parents divorced.

Hanson worked day-labor jobs, occasionally stayed at the Helping Hands shelter and recently had been attending services at the Christian Assembly Church on Reservoir Street.

The house on 11th Street was abandoned several months ago when the owner, John Lyons, entered a nursing home, according to_ neighbors. John and Mary Lyons are listed in Sangamon County tax records as the owners. It is unknown why family or friends had not cleaned out the house or removed belongings.

The house, which was destroyed in the fire, had a fair market value of $22,254, according to the county tax rolls.

Rita Monkman-Tarr, executive director of Contact Ministries, said she had a physical reaction when she heard Hanson was the victim of the blaze.

“I had tears in my eyes and a pain in my gut. It hurt bad – in part because I knew Eddie and also because we weren’t able to stop something like this from happening,” she said.

Monkman-Tarr also is chairwoman of the mayor’s task force on homelessness. The task force was formed following the January 2004 death of 41-year-old Michael Moffett, a homeless Chicago man who had been released from prison about a month before he was found frozen to death at the Clear Lake Avenue overpass.

Moffett, who suffered from mental illness, apparently chose not to seek help from the local shelters. But after his death, local officials opened an overflow shelter in the basement of Contact Ministries to accommodate more homeless people during the winter.

Hanson, unlike Moffett, did seek shelter in the overflow facility, but beyond that would not accept help. He was considered chronically homeless.

“If you have any compassion in your heart, this is going to affect you,” Monkman-Tarr said.

She said the board of directors of Contact Ministries decided Thursday to host an overflow shelter in the basement again this winter. Otherwise, she said, officials and volunteers hope to work with other social service agencies to help homeless people get help for such problems as addiction and mental illness.

“We need to keep working with them to get the treatment they need, but we also have to be realistic to the understanding that we cannot make anyone accept treatment or decide to go through that,” she said.

Monkman-Tarr recalled running into Hanson during the city’s first homeless count the summer of 2003. She said he was “out of his head” and intoxicated. Volunteers talked to him and gave him a care package. Police officers expressed frustration about how little they could do when they encounter individuals like Hanson who are drunk and homeless, but not causing any trouble.

“They didn’t want to arrest him because they knew that wasn’t really the answer to the problem. There was no detox available. There wasn’t anything they could do with him,” she said.

Police later that night wound up arresting Hanson after he started throwing rocks at cars.

“He was a good guy. I think that every one of these people are good people, but when alcohol and other substances get hold of them, they aren’t necessarily the same people that they are when they’re not under that influence,” Monkman-Tarr said.

Planning under way for fire victim’s burial
June 17, 2005

Officials on Thursday were beginning to plan a funeral service for a homeless man who died last week in a house fire.

Sangamon County coroner’s office employees have been unable to find anyone related to Edward R. “Eddie” Hanson to notify them of his death.

Coroner Susan Boone and Rita Monkman-Tarr, executive director of Contact Ministries, are working to put together a service for Hanson, who apparently had many friends in Springfield.

Hanson, 41, died June 7 when fire destroyed an abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. Hanson and another homeless man were inside about 9:45 p.m. searching for canned food. Hanson set a small fire in a front room of the house, near the only exit, so the men could see.

The blaze quickly spread. The other man ran past the flames and out the door, but Hanson was unable to escape. He died of smoke inhalation and burns.

Boone said her office has followed up on every possible lead to try to find his next-of-kin.

“We went on the Internet and got people with the same last names and called those names. We called places where he had worked, and we contacted people he had put down on his application,” she said, noting that Hanson didn’t often identify emergency contacts on his job applications.

“One person I contacted said she really didn’t know him, and it made her sad that he put her down. She said she wished she had known him and had been able to help him. That’s the kind of stuff we ran into.”

A local funeral home has agreed to provide a site for a service, and Hanson’s remains probably will be cremated and then buried in a local cemetery, Boone said. Officials still are ironing out the details, such as finding a pastor to perform the service.

Monkman-Tarr said she ran into Boone at a function Wednesday and asked if she’d had any luck finding Hanson’s family. She said she told Boone she wanted to help make sure he got a proper funeral.

“I told her that I was sure there were other individuals in the community who would want to be there, that he’d been here quite a period of time and had made friends and there would be other individuals who would want to be a part of this,” she said.

Hanson had lived in Springfield since about 1994, according to friends. They said he rarely spoke of his family but mentioned on occasion that he was born in Hawaii and he and his brother moved with their mother to Texas following a divorce.

Hanson had been a carnival worker and a roofer. He also worked day-labor jobs in Springfield.

He had been in jail on numerous occasions but recently had begun attending worship services at Christian Assembly Church, 2105 Reservoir St. He occasionally spent the night behind the church building where no one would bother him.

The coroner’s office sometimes has to bury individuals who die here with no one to claim their remains. Boone said she’s had more cases of unclaimed bodies in the past three years or so than she’s ever seen.

“We don’t have a potters’ field, and I have to take this money out of my budget to pay for it,” she said. “Thank goodness for these wonderful funeral directors. I just ask them and they just come forward and will even do a funeral service for us. I have had a bunch of those things happening lately.

“It’s really sad, especially when there is absolutely no family.”

Brother of homeless man killed in fire located
June 23, 2005A brother of Eddie Hanson, the homeless man who died in a house fire June 7, has been located and plans to attend his funeral at 11 a.m. today at Kirlin-Egan and Butler Funeral Home, 900 S. Sixth St.

Burial will follow at Oak Hill Cemetery.

Officials began planning a service late last week as the likelihood of finding Hanson’s next-of-kin diminished and several people who knew him said they wanted him to have a proper burial.

Hanson, 41, had no identification on him when his body was found inside the burning abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. He was homeless and, although he had many acquaintances in Springfield, rarely spoke about his family or his childhood, they said.

Several people who knew him came forward with suggestions about how officials might be able to find family members to notify them of his death, but those tips did not pan out.

Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone said she called a man in Texas Tuesday afternoon, thinking it was a long shot that he would be a relative. The man, Kerry Hanson, returned her call that night and identified himself as Eddie Hanson’s brother.

“I left a message on his machine, and he called back,” she said Wednesday. “I told him everything that was going on and what the community was doing for Eddie.”

Kerry Hanson is expected to be at the funeral today, Boone said. Eddie Hanson apparently had siblings scattered across the country, and his mother is living, but he did not regularly keep in touch with any of them, she added.

Hanson and another homeless man were searching for food about 9:45 p.m., when Hanson set a small fire in a front room of the house, near the only exit, so they could see.

The fire quickly spread. The other man ran past the flames and out the door, but Hanson was unable to escape. He died of smoke inhalation and burns.
Two dozen attend services for man who died in fire
June 24, 2005

About two dozen people, including two younger brothers, gathered Thursday to pay respects to Eddie Hanson, the homeless Springfield man who died in a house fire this month.

John Hanson thanked those who helped Eddie, who for the most part was estranged from his family, and urged support of the efforts of social service agencies such as Contact Ministries.

“I’m glad the community is reaching out to the homeless and underprivileged,” said John Hanson, who lives in Mississippi.

He learned of his brother’s death from the coroner’s office Tuesday evening and traveled to Springfield with another brother, Kerry Hanson, for the funeral.

Officials had difficulty locating Hanson’s family because he rarely spoke of them to acquaintances in Springfield. He had no identification on him when he was found, and he did not use family members as emergency contacts on job applications and other forms.

“(Eddie) searched for happiness and meaning in the bottom of a bottle many times, and I know many of you tried to help him. I appreciate that,” John Hanson told the gathering. “The truth is, you won’t find meaning there.”

John Hanson provided answers to many of the questions people had about Eddie’s background and the possible reasons why he became homeless.

He was born in 1964 in Honolulu and had six brothers and a sister. His mother still is living. Around 1971, his mother remarried and the family moved to Dallas, which is where the children grew up for the most part.

Their stepfather left when Eddie was around 10, and “that would not have been the first abandonment he experienced,” John Hanson said.

“Unfortunately, that story plays out all across the country. The names change and the places change, but the story is the same,” he added.

Eddie Hanson got into drugs and alcohol as a teenager and made some poor choices, his brother said. At 16, he joined a traveling carnival and worked up and down the East Coast, losing touch with his family for several years.

John Hanson remembered Eddie popping in at a relative’s house one time, and then he didn’t see him again for about 20 years. “I know in my heart the boy that he was died many years ago. And the man that he became I don’t know,” he said. “I know there were probably a thousand times we wondered where he was and what he was up to.”

He said he was glad to know Eddie had developed some meaningful relationships in Springfield, and he was happy to hear people describe Eddie as a giving person.

“He gets that from my mother. He always reminded me of my mother a lot. When I hear those things about him, I think of her,” he said.

Mike Hubbard, who was roommates with Eddie Hanson at one time, said Eddie was like a brother to him.

“We had a lot of good times together. He was a very caring person. I tried to get him help, but he never would listen,” Hubbard said. “Then I moved out of my house, and he moved out onto the streets.”

Hanson’s remains were cremated and buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Someone donated a headstone for his gravesite, and several businesses, organizations and individuals sent flowers to Kirlin-Egan and Butler Funeral Home for the service.

Hanson, 41, died when fire destroyed an abandoned house at 1826 N. 11th St. He and another homeless man were inside about 9:45 p.m. searching for canned food. Hanson set a small fire in a front room of the house, near the only exit, so the men could see.

As the blaze spread, the other man ran past the flames and out the door, but Hanson was unable to escape. He died of smoke inhalation and burns.