Donors Build New Home After Fire Killed Woman's Fiancee

Garner, N.C. — Nearly 15 months ago, Lauren Massey was six months pregnant and mourning the death of her fiancee in a house fire.

On Saturday, Massey and her family opened the door to their newly built home, financed by donations.

Robert Curtis McCarty, 28, died while getting his fiancee and her parents out of their Jordan Woods Drive home when it caught fire on Sept. 16, 2006. The house was destroyed, along with all of Massey's personal possessions and baby supplies.

A week earlier, the couple had found out they were having a boy.

The parents-to-be had planned to move out and raise that boy in a home of his own, Pam Strickland, Massey's mother said.

The community, however, rallied around the grief-stricken family and raised money to build the family a new house.

On Saturday, Massey, her infant son, mother and father moved into that house in Raleigh. They invited friends and neighbors to celebrate at a housewarming party.

Friends and family remembered McCarty as a kind, hard-working family man, who loved his mother and 4-year-old daughter. He was motorcycle enthusiast and had made a name for himself as a master carpenter.