A stripper is on the run with her lesbian lover after the children she left home alone were killed in a fire.
Police are hunting Kiaira Pollard, 27, whose sons KiDonn, seven, and KrisDon, four, perished in a blaze that tore through her Pittsburgh apartment while she was at work.
They believe Pollard is with her 33-year-old girlfriend Dayna Kenney, who works as her personal security guard.
Fireman found straight-A student KiDonn dead under a pile of clothes while KrisDon was discovered under a crib.
Pollard became a fugitive on Wednesday, a day after police filed charges against her in connection with the June 30 tragedy.
Kenney will also face charges if she helps Pollard evade police.
Both boys were killed when the fire took hold of the flat in North Versailles.
When Pollard eventually arrived from work on the fateful night she told officers a babysitter must have left the children home alone.
Pollard then frantically tried to call the sitter to no avail.
Witnesses said when she arrived she shouted: ‘That’s my apartment! My babies! Where’s the babysitter?’
Police later checked Pollard’s record and found she never made a call.
They were first at the scene but could not get through the locked front steel door, which fire fighters had to break down.
Neighbours, interviewed at the time, said Pollard was an attentive mother who would never leave her boys at home on their own.
But police thought otherwise charging her with homicide, endangering the welfare of children and tampering with a smoke detector.
A maintenance man told officers the smoke detector was missing during an annual inspection two days before the fire but he had replaced it. He added that Pollard told him she had previously disconnected the device because the alarm would go off when she cooked.
Allegheny County Police Lieutenant Andrew Schurman said Kenney and Pollard ‘travel as a pair’.
He added: ‘She’s (Pollard’s) girlfriend, and they share a residence.’
Investigators believe the blaze started accidentally at 2.30am next to an air conditioner in the apartment.
A friend of Pollard’s told police she drove her to work at 10 or 11pm the night before the fire and didn’t see a babysitter.
Pollard refused to give detectives contact information for the babysitter when they requested it on several occasions after the fire.
The boys’ funeral took place amid emotional scenes earlier this month.
Pollard sobbed and leaned on others as she walked toward the lone white casket holding her sons. Relatives cried out when the casket was closed.
KiDonn was expected to join a programme for gifted pupils.
KrisDon was said to be fond of Power Rangers and was known as ‘Fatty’.
His father, Christopher Williams, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the boys were ‘beautiful’.
He added: ‘They were best friends.’
Grandmother Carmen Pollard said the boys were never apart.
‘You take one,’ she said, ‘you’ve got to take the other.’
Cousin Ashley Burchette told the same paper that Ms Pollard will forever suffer the loss of her sons and should not be charged.
‘She’s paid enough,’ Ms Burchette said. ‘She’s paid the ultimate price.’
