Aarion Termalewil Spark

In the early hours of a cold Saturday morning in St. Louis, a fire broke out in a vacant building. When the St. Louis Fire Department arrived at the 5300 block of Queens, near Kingshighway, at approximately 1:30 a.m. on February 1, 2014, they worked to extinguish the flames that had engulfed the structure. Inside, they made a grim discovery.

The body of 19-year-old Aairon Sparkman, a Black male, was found within the burned-out building. He was so severely burned that he was initially unre ...