Family Fights To Keep Custody Of Sole Survivor Following Grayslake Fire

GRAYSLAKE, IL -- The family of the sole survivor following a house fire in Grayslake is asking for the public's help in raising funds to help the teenage girl and to pay for legal fees so they can maintain legal custody of her. James Hamm, the uncle of the teenage girl, wrote on a GoFundMe page set up Wednesday that he and his wife, who are both retired, fought to gain custody of the girl after they feared she'd be placed in the care of the state following the Aug. 22 fire on Normandy Lane in Grayslake. The girl and her brother, Zachary Bollam, 17, were living with their grandmother, Deborah St. Antoine-Browne, 64, when the blaze broke out at about 12:34 a.m. that morning.

• Teen Killed After Fire Identified As District 127 Student

While the girl, whose name has never been released, and her grandma were able to get out of the home, Bollam became trapped inside and suffered burns and extensive damage to his respiratory system, according to the GoFundMe page. Three police officers rushed into the burning house to save him. Authorities later said the boy had a gunshot wound to his head when he was pulled from the fire.

Bollam died four days later at Loyola Medical Center. His cause of death has not yet been released. Two days before that, St. Antoine-Browne killed herself in a parking garage at the hospital.

• Teen Pulled From Burning Home Has Died

Authorities learned that before she killed herself, the grandmother gave her granddaughter a bottle of prescription drugs and told her to "take it all," according to media and police reports. The girl did take some of the medication but ended up seeking emergency help at the hospital.

The grandmother was the guardian to both Bollam and his younger, teenage sister at the time of the fire. The tragic events over the past month have left the girl alone and left her family members scrambling to obtain emergency custody of her, Hamm wrote on the GoFundMe page.

"Fortunately, we were able to obtain emergency custody of our niece, however this is just the start of a tedious and costly process that we will need to complete in hopes that she can stay with us permanently. We are a retired couple and are already amazed at the rapidly rising costs of this tragedy," he wrote. "Court required document fees costing hundreds of dollars, providing necessities for our niece as everything she owned was destroyed in the fire, counseling costs, travel expenses, and the retention of a lawyer are adding up quickly."

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As of Thursday,just $80 has been raised for the online fund-raising campaign, which has a goal of raising $20,000.

Any donations received will go toward necessities for the teenage girl as well as helping her aunt and uncle pay for the "ever-growing legal fees to keep her home with us and allow us to heal and move on." Any funds over the requested amount will be saved and used for the niece as a schooling fund so that she can pursue a career in nursing or another career if she changes her mind.

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