A Canton couple, claims they saved a woman’s life from a house fire earlier this month, but their story is proving to be bogus. The City of Canton was even going to honor them with a Good Samaritan awards ceremony. But even after it’s come out that their story is, in fact, false, the couple is sticking to it.
“Richard went in the house and got their mother and saved her life,” said Diana Campbell, sobbing during an interview with a reporter from the Canton Repository.
“You brought her out?” asked the reporter of Campbell’s boyfriend, Richard McFee.
“Yes I did,” said McFee.
Video from the Canton Repository was taken moments after a house fire erupted. McFee and Campbell claimed they were the heroes that day, that McFee pulled a mother, from the burning home.
“Multiple accounts I have are all agreeing on, that it was actually another person that went in the house and rescued the resident out of the home,” said Everett Hall, an Investigator with the Canton Fire Department.
But reports surfaced that contradicted those claims and launched a Canton Fire Department investigation. Eye-witnesses and the woman rescued from the home all claim it wasn’t McFee, but someone else who saved her.
“He did hand her off to the couple who claimed to have went in there and they took her to their car,” said Hall.
“They’re wanting me to pay bills for them and they’re taking money that was given to my family for a tragedy and not saying anything about it, now I’m a little upset with them,” said Scott Seifer, the Canton homeowner whose house caught fire.
Seifer was first appreciative of McFee and Campbell but now says he thinks they’re just out to make a buck.
“It’s a proven fact, I mean the investigators did their job, they proved what was going on, so they know that they’re lying,” he said.
News 5 confronted Campbell at McFee’s East Canton home.
“No it is not, it is right,” said Campbell when asked if her story was a lie.
“Yes, it was Richard McFee who went in and saved that woman’s life,” she said.
When asked if they would’ve handled anything differently, “I do know this,” said Campbell, “It don’t pay you to help people, not at all, and I will never step up and do it again, and that’s all I’m going to say.”
The Canton Fire Department has postponed the award ceremony. They will be honoring two other men, who have been identified as the ones who rescued the woman from the fire.
