On April 27, 2006, 8-year-old Mackenzie Branham died in a deliberately set fire at her mother’s home at 7 E. Walnut Street in Jeffersonville, Ohio. The blaze started while Mackenzie was asleep in her second-floor bedroom; firefighters searched the upper floor but she had already succumbed to acute carbon monoxide toxicity from smoke and other products of combustion. Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend escaped the house unharmed.

Autopsy evidence later revealed DNA findings indicating sexual assault, a fact Mackenzie’s father Donald Branham says he was not informed about for several years. Authorities, including the Fayette County Sheriff Vernon Stanforth and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, classify the fire as arson and say the identity of the person responsible remains unknown. The Jeffersonville community holds annual remembrance events and officials continue to ask anyone with information to come forward.

If anyone knew Mackenzie, her family, or has information about the fire or the later DNA findings, please share what you know.