Charcoal Fumes Blamed in Motel Death

AZUSA — A 48-year-old man apparently died of carbon monoxide poisoning after he lit a fire of charcoal briquettes next to his bed in a motel room to keep warm late Tuesday.

A motel manager from the Canyon City Econolodge found Thomas Wayre on Wednesday morning lying fully clothed on his bed in a second-floor room. Two feet from the bed were the remains of a charcoal fire on a toilet tank lid.

County paramedics declared him dead at the scene.

Azusa Police Officer Mike Jerome said that Wayre, whose home may have been in La Verne, had last been seen alive in the motel’s laundry room at about 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

The section of the motel where the victim had been staying did not have central heating, police said. Wayre had apparently rejected the offer of a plug-in space heater, Jerome said.

It was the second such incident in the region in three weeks. On Dec. 19, Maria Gonzalez and her two children, Ernesto, 6, and Eliana, 5, died after the woman used a lighted barbecue to warm their Chino home.

Carbon monoxide produced by burning charcoal adheres to blood cells, blocking the exchange of oxygen to the blood stream. Instructions on charcoal packages warn Cagainst using it indoors.