Before becoming a housekeeper at the Knights Inn in Endwell, 36-year-old Keisha Wood was a resident there when she became unhoused. The people who shared the same space, she said, were not just neighbors. They were like her family.
In the aftermath of a deadly fire that destroyed the motel, which served as emergency housing for unhoused people, Wood and others who have been in her shoes are mourning the six people killed in the blaze.
The names of the victims had not yet been confirmed by police as of June 23, but on a wall outside the Broome County Office Building, those who attended a rally that evening wrote the following names in chalk: Michelle Woolfolk, Dominique Cruz, Joshuea Molyneaux.
Cruz and Molyneaux’s three children, loved ones said, were also killed.
Tyler J. Russell, a 24-year-old who was living at the Knights Inn, has been charged with six counts of second-degree manslaughter and one count of fourth-degree arson as a result of the fire.
Knights Inn family mourns loss
Nearly 100 people gathered in downtown Binghamton on June 23 to honor the lives lost.
Michelle Woolfolk was known as “Auntie Michelle” to everyone she met and was a mother figure to all who knew her personally, according to local organizer Masai Andrews.
Woolfolk always kept her room neat and carried herself with “such poise.”
“People who didn’t know her are not going to understand the gravity of that loss,” he said. “She has contributed to this community and touched people’s lives in ways that others fully can’t grasp.”
Jennifer Donahue, who lived at the Knights Inn until May 2025, said Woolfolk “did not deserve this.”
“She would give the clothes off the back for you, she would do anything for you,” she said.
Jazmine Monae said she grew up with Dominique Cruz from elementary to high school. She said Cruz was “the life of the party,” “boisterous” and the type of person who could “adapt to any situation.”
“She was just for her people, she was there for the people she cared about and loved,” Monae said.
Cruz had a big family, she said, and she was just starting her own with her husband Joshuea Molyneaux. Monae said Molyneaux was a good man whom Cruz “loved so much.”
Wood said when she was working at the motel, she loved to go to see Cruz and her children. The kids, she said, “always seemed to be happy” as if they had “no idea they were homeless.”
When she would see Cruz, her youngest child was “always on her hip.” Cruz had been sick for a couple of weeks prior to the fire.
Wood recalled the last words she said to her.
I hope you feel better.
I’ll see you soon.
Rallying for housing
Woolfolk, according to Andrews, had had a stroke and couldn’t walk. She was living with “a serious disability” and, he claimed, the Broome County Department of Social Services put her in “an inaccessible motel room where she lived for months and months.”
Andrews and a group of local activists have been going to the Knights Inn for many years, spending “countless hours” distributing food, doing community outreach and helping the unhoused people there in any way they could.
Andrews said this fire should show that everyone is “one tragedy away from finding ourselves living in a motel shelter.”
“Everybody deserves housing; housing is a human right,” he said. “The people at the Knights Inn are our friends, our neighbors, our community members, and every life lost yesterday is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Jasmine Stradford was previously unhoused and spent time living in the Knights Inn. A day after the fire burned what was once her temporary home, she said she felt broken and angry. She called the temporary housing provided to Broome County’s unhoused population a “Band-Aid over a bullet hole.”
“That’s what this institution is, it’s a Band-Aid over a gigantic problem that they refuse to address or even acknowledge,” she said.
Stradford claimed what happened at the motel “could have been prevented” had county officials helped the unhoused population find a safer place to live.
In May, the county earmarked up to $200,000 to eliminate the use of motel shelters for unhoused people. A Request for Proposal involves a two-year contract with a firm that would partner with the county on solutions in the short term (like exclusive landlord agreements) and long term (like building a tiny home village).
Community support pours in
A Red Cross volunteer said the organization’s current estimate is that 37 households have been displaced, a total of 73 people.
Support from the community began pouring in as soon as the news of the fire broke. The Red Cross began turning away donations because they were so overwhelmed with clothing, food and hygiene products, and an emergency relief fund started by the United Way of Broome County had raised over $44,000 as of 7:30 p.m. on June 23.
Many of the people who were staying at the Knights Inn were given shelter at Vestal United Methodist Church at 328 Main St.
GoFundMe pages have been set up by Cruz and Woolfolk’s families to cover funeral costs and had each raised over $5,000 as of June 23.
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: ‘They were family.’ Community mourns six lives lost in Knights Inn fire
Reporting by Jillian McCarthy, Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin / Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jillian McCarthy, Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin | USA TODAY Network
