Man Dies Saving Pregnant Fiancee From House Fire

GARNER, N.C. — A Garner family is grieving the loss of a man killed Saturday morning while apparently trying to save his family.

Robert Curtis McCarty, 28, was the only person who did not make it safely out of the house on Jordan Woods Drive.

Garner investigators said there were four people inside the house, including McCarty's fiancee, Lauren Massey, who is six months pregnant. Last week, they found out she was having a boy.

"We were preparing to help (McCarty and Massey) find a house and move out," said Massey's mother, Pam Strickland, who owned the house. "They were going to get married, and it's all gone."

Strickland said McCarty and her daughter were looking forward to their new baby. Massey, she said, is still in shock with the loss of her fiancee and all her personal belongings.

"She's just devastated," Strickland said. "We all are."

Friends and family members remember McCarty as a kind, hard-working family man who was a motorcycle enthusiast who had made a name for himself as a master carpenter.

"He was a real hard worker. He was caring," Strickland said. "He loved my daughter to death. He had a 4-year old (daughter), loved her to death too, his mother -- it was a very close family."

Investigators were still working Sunday to determine the cause of the fire.