‘Worst news of my life’: Woman learns on social media that parents died in Kansas house fire
Jayden Amox was working in Kansas City on New Year’s Eve when she got a message from her sister saying that their mother’s house in Medicine Lodge had caught fire.
Initially, she said, there was no information on how bad the fire was.
“I couldn’t find anything on like, you know, Google or anything like that,” Amox said. Then she looked at Facebook and saw “several videos and photos of my parents’ house on fire.”
Amox said someone on social media said that afternoon that the occupants of the home had died. An hour later after she had called the Medicine Lodge Police Department, an officer confirmed that her parents, Noel and Charles Adamson, had died.
“Something that I wasn’t very appreciative of is that I wasn’t contacted first before all this was basically posted,” Amox said. “A lot of family members from both sides of the family did not find out and many of us did not receive a call.”
The Barber County Sheriff’s Office and the Medicine Lodge Fire Department responded to the house fire shortly after noon on Sunday. The Kansas State Fire Marshal’s Office was called to help investigate after two people were found dead.
Fire investigators determined that fire had started in the garage of the home, but the cause is undetermined.
“I cried. My supervisor, you know, I told her about the situation and she brought me to another co-worker’s house,” Amox said. “She told me that she doesn’t think that I should be alone because I just got the worst news of my life that my parents passed away and nobody told me.”
Amox moved to Kansas City from Medicine Lodge in September 2023. She does not have a vehicle.
“I am currently trying today [Wednesday] to go down to Medicine Lodge,” Amox said. “I don’t have my own car and it’s a four hour drive, so it’s a little hard for me to figure out how to get down there.”
Remembering family
Amox and her mother Noel were born in Alaska; Amox in Anchorage and her mother in Kodiak. The two lived in Hutchinson before moving to Medicine Lodge in May 2022.
“My mom just wanted to like find a new place that seemed very interesting at first,” Amox said. “So we decided to move down to Kansas.”
Amox’s stepfather, Charles Adamson, met her mom and married in 2019. She remembers fondly how well he treated both her and her younger sister.
“He was honestly a very good person to me and my little sister,” Amox said. “And he for sure adored my mom and my mom adored him.”
Reflecting back on fond memories, Amox recalled the entire family making something that “involved flour.”
“Somebody started throwing flour, so we basically all had a flour fight. Even the dog was involved” Amox said. “I felt bad because my dog was covered in flour in the end.”
Amox is still processing what happened.
“I don’t know how to personally feel,” Amox said. “It’s so sudden to the point I don’t even know what fully happened.”
A GoFundMe has been created to help pay for funeral expenses and expenses for Amox and her sister to fly to Alaska to spread her mother’s ashes, the fundraiser said.
The fundraiser can be found by clicking here.
