CARROLLTON - Ten-year-old Charnise Purnell died Tuesday afternoon at the Mississippi Firefighters Memorial Burn Center in Greenville.
Charnise, a fourth-grader at Marshall Elementary in North Carrollton, suffered burns over 40 percent of her body early morning Jan. 15 when fire consumed the small wood frame house in which she lived.
Carroll County Coroner Bill Lord said the cause of death was respiratory failure due to the severity of the burns. Smoke inhalation from the fire also contributed, Lord said.
She had been a patient in the Burn Center ever since, and there had been hopeful reports of her condition. Her mother, Dorothy Purnell, died at the scene of the fire on Poorhouse Road southeast of Carrollton.
James Earl Redditt of North Carrollton, a family friend who was injured in the blaze, was discharged from the Burn Center Monday.
