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Dog Loving Woman Dies in House Fire

Dog Loving Woman Dies in House Fire (Added: February 10, 2010)

A Woodlawn woman is found dead inside her burning home. Now her family is trying to locate two of her dogs. Suzanne Collins explains Cathy Rockstroh loved animals and appeared with those pets l ... (more)

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By CBS Newspath
Published: February 10, 2010

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Flames were leaping from the front porch and windows of the Woodlawn home Monday night when firefighters arrived. When they got a hose in the front door, they found a victim just inside.

"She was found quickly," said Elise Armacost. "She was deceased when they found her. We did have medic crews on the scene, but our understanding is she had been overcome before we arrived."

Rockstroh was 59. She was a dog lover who appeared in January on WJZ's Manic Monday on the Morning Edition with two dogs.

Those two dogs are now missing. A third, Queenie, died in the fire. Her son hopes someone may locate them. His mother loved animals, worked part time in a kennel and promoted dog rescue.

The victim's son told WJZ he thinks his mother was outside shoveling her walkway, because she'd called to tell him that's what she was doing moments before the fire. He thinks perhaps he saw something wrong in her house and raced back in to rescue her dogs.

Neighbors say Rockstroh was a people person.

"She loved her animals and it just was awful, really hard. I didn't know until this morning she had died," said Regina Sandy.

Rockstroh wrote pet poetry. She told her son if she ever died, she wanted one read at her funeral. Her neighbor had a cat die and was comforted by a special poem.

"She had a wonderful personality and she used to always go around the block and I'd be sitting on the porch and she'd come over. She'd recite the poem because she knew how I loved the animal," Sandy said.

The Fire Department says it's not sure at this point what caused the fire.

A family living on the other side of the burning duplex was not injured.