A pregnant woman was killed early this morning in a fire in her Brooklyn apartment which police believe was caused by her lit cigarette. Choy "CC" Barrington, 21, was found dead in her third floor apartment on Washington Ave. in Prospect Heights at 3:30 a.m. She was three months pregnant.
According to Barrington's 36-year-old boyfriend Laurel Prince, this wouldn't have been the first time Barrington, a cosmetology student and geriatric nurse, has fallen asleep with a cigarette in her mouth: "Two weeks ago she fell asleep with a cigarette in her mouth. But I was there to save her and put it out...I wasn't there to save her this time." He said she had been smiling and laughing on the roof, planning a party and telling family about the baby, earlier that evening; he lamented to the News, "My baby is ashes."
Her roommates said they woke up in the middle of the night with smoke having filled the apartment—"I looked under the door and saw red flames. There was nothing but fire," said Lawrence Jones, one of the roommates. Jones said he tried to put out the flames with a faulty fire extinguisher, and even tried to kick down the door of her room, but it was too late at that point, and had to flee the apartment with his wife.
