Wichita woman took down smoke detector to vape before closet fire hurt toddlers
A Wichita woman charged with endangering two toddlers who were trapped inside a bedroom closet that caught fire earlier this year told investigators she removed a smoke detector from the room so it wouldn’t go off when she vaped.
She also knew the closet door could not be opened from the inside, according to an affidavit released Friday.
Tyana K. Kreie, who is charged with two counts of aggravated child endangerment over the March 18 fire at River Walk Apartments, told authorities she found the 2- and 4-year-old boys unresponsive in the closet after awaking to a smoke-filled room.
She told investigators that the boys “were having behavioral issues,” including “running around the apartment all day, screaming, and hitting each other,” so she gave them each 10 milligrams of melatonin “to get (them) to calm down,” the affidavit says.
She told authorities she “did not hear the boys get off the bed” overnight, but she woke up around 1 a.m., saw smoke and found the boys in a small closet “full of stuff.”
She said “it felt like she was in a dream and did not think what was happening was real,” the affidavit says.
Kreie told authorities she knew the closet door “could only be opened from the outside” and confirmed that the apartment bedroom had a working smoke alarm that was supposed to be near the closet.
But she said she took it down and put it in a dresser so its alarm wouldn’t sound every time she would vape in the apartment, the affidavit says.
The toddlers were hospitalized in critical condition with grade one respiratory burns, according to the affidavit. They were later taken into police protective custody.
During an interview about a week after the fire, one of the boys told authorities he was at the apartment with Kreie and the other toddler when he “woke up and went to the closet ... to get some toy guns to play with,” according to the affidavit. The boy told authorities they found the butane lighter after they were in the closet, that he knew how to use it and that he “wanted to set ... clothes on fire” because a person whose name was redacted from the affidavit “gave him ‘whoopins,’” the affidavit says.
Investigators determined the fire started from an open flame in the closet. There were “several small torches and a larger butane torch” inside, the affidavit says.
The boy also said he had never been locked in the closet “for punishment, but he knew the closet could not be opened from the inside,” the affidavit says.
Kreie, 25, is due in court again on June 8.
This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 3:17 PM.
