Family members have identified a man killed in a fire Thursday morning in North Linden
In an email to The Dispatch, Groves aunt confirmed 47-year-old Shawn Groves was the man who was found inside the home at 1152 Minnesota Ave., located between McGuffey Road and Hamilton Avenue north of Columbus Alternative High School.
Groves and his pets, a dog and several cats, were found inside the home by firefighters shorty after 4 a.m. Thursday. Groves was pronounced dead at the scene.
Columbus Fire investigators are working to determine where and how the fire started inside the one-story home.
Martin said the fire was quickly controlled by crews on the scene and no other injuries were reported.
With school buildings shuttered and the COVID-19 pandemic taking hold last March, Talisa Dixon was struggling through the lowest point of her career in education. But for the first time, she couldn t talk to the person she always called for help.
Just a week earlier as Gov. Mike DeWine declared a state of emergency in Ohio the Columbus City Schools superintendent was more than 600 miles away in her hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, saying her final goodbyes as cancer claimed her father s life.
As she made arrangements after his death with her three siblings, Dixon s team of school district leaders was planning for a state-mandated shutdown. It wasn t until she arrived back in Columbus in mid-March and was sitting alone in her Downtown apartment with schools already closed that the gravity of the situation hit her.