SHELBY COUNTY — The two people killed in a massive home explosion in Shelby County have been identified as a married couple.
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Sherry Ann Tracy, 57, and Thomas A. Tracy, Jr., 56, were identified as the victims, Shelby County Sheriff James Frye confirmed on Wednesday.
As reported on News Center 7 at 5:00, the couple had lived at the home on Sharp Road for close to 25 years.
The couple’s two children, Thomas III and Sarah, wandered through the home site on Wednesday looking for keepsakes to connect to their parents. An investigator from the State Fire Marshal’s Office escorted them around the site.
News Center 7 spotted the investigator placing stickers that read “potential evidence” in a few locations.
While the Tracy children were too emotional to speak on camera, they did share pictures of their parents with News Center 7. They also gave our team a message to share:
“Hold your loved ones tight. Please never think that something cannot happen to you or your family as this is something surreal and we cannot begin to describe the pain. We want (our parents) to be remembered for the amazing people they were.”
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News Center 7 learned that Thomas Tracy, Jr. worked for the Honda engine plant in Anna for 30 years. The company was remembering him and his wife today by lowering the flags in front of the plant to half-staff in their honor.
As previously reported on News Center 7, several fire departments responded around 2:05 a.m. to the 17000 block of Sharp Road on initial reports of a house fire on Tuesday.
“And the neighbor’s house, I think it exploded, " one 911 caller told dispatchers.
A neighbor’s security camera caught the moment the house exploded.
“It just spread. It started burning the trees, started on the power lines ... it was chaos,” Billy Williams said.
New video obtained through a public records request with the Ohio Department of Transportation showed that the fireball from the explosion was caught on one of their traffic cameras on Interstate 75 in Sidney.
Investigators confirmed that two occupants, Sherry and Thomas, were found deceased. There were also a couple of dogs found dead at the scene.
The home itself was a total loss and the debris field from the explosion is bigger than two football fields and other homes were damaged by it.
The cause of the explosion remains under investigation. The Tracy children said their parents recently installed a new heat pump, a variation of a furnace, at their home, but it’s unclear at this time if that had anything to do with how this explosion happened.
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