Sister of Victim Who Died with Garden Hose in Hand Recalls Heartbreaking Moment She Fled L.A. Fires Without Him

01/13/2025 05:35 PM

Shari Shaw had become closer to her older brother, who had health issues that affected his vision and mobility, as of late

• The sister of Victor Shaw, the 66-year-old Altadena, Calif., man whose body was found last week, is speaking out
• Shari Shaw tells PEOPLE about the moments she found her older brother's body outside their family home of more than 50 years
• Shari says Victor was soft-spoken, an avid sports fan and loved taking life's back roads

The sister of Victor Shaw, the 66-year-old man whose body was found last week clutching a garden hose outside his family home in Altadena, Calif., is sharing the heartbreaking moment she realized her brother was killed amid the devastating Los Angeles fires.

"When I went up there, everything was leveled," Shari Shaw, 62, tells PEOPLE. "There's nothing left, block after block after block after block just gone, nothing. And so when we got to the property location, the neighbor across the street's son was there, and I told him what happened, and he kind of walked into the debris and called out Victor's name to see maybe he might be unconscious. Maybe he is hiding under the bathtub, or, you know, whatever. I hoped that."

She continues, "But when he turned around and looked on the ground, he saw my brother there holding a garden hose, and I didn't want to see him, because I didn't want that to be the last vision of my brother that I'd have. And I just broke down and cried."

Related: Authorities Investigating After Drone Collides with Firefighting Aircraft in L.A.

Shari adds that she called 911 and was shuttled to various agencies before the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office told her that they would send someone to the address. 

"In an hour's time, they sent an EMT, and all they did was come over to look at the body, just to say, okay, confirmation, a body, and did whatever they did with their paperwork, but no one came up there for two days, two days, two days," she tells PEOPLE. "My brother lay there. I didn't know if he was going to burn up. So part of why we took pictures was that if he were to catch on fire, I wanted something to be able to identify his body."

A family member who works for the sheriff's department was later able to tell Shari more details about how Victor was found near their family's home of more than 50 years.

"He had some singe on his left leg and torso, but otherwise he was intact, but he had a cell phone and some kind of medical paper with him and the water hose, so I'm not sure if he was trying to get away or he thought he could fight the flames, but that's where he lay," she tells PEOPLE. "And most likely died from the smoke, you know, an accidental death due to the smoke."

Victor had encountered health problems in recent years including diabetes-related complications that left his vision impaired. Shari adds that her brother's kidneys were failing and that she had taken on the role of caregiver for her sibling, who had worked as a delivery driver.

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When the fire began on the night of Tuesday, Jan. 7, Shari was at her home in Eaton Canyon, about 15 minutes away from where her brother lived. She rushed to his home to gather personal documents and possessions as the wind swirled around them and the fire began to encroach the area.

"And the wind would pick up and as the night grew on, the wind got stronger and stronger and stronger, and I had no cell phone service, so I couldn't follow anything on the phone," she says. "But he was asleep, so it was hard to get him up. It was hard to get him awake. When he did wake up, he said, 'Can I just sit here for a couple minutes?' and I said, 'No, there's no time we have to get out of here.' "

Shari says by the time she returned from making a trip to the car, the fire drew closer and "embers as big as meteors" rained down on them.

"There was no way to try to get the hose out and douse it," she recalls. "There just was no way. And once that started, that's when the wind really kicked up and the fire smoke got really thick, and the heat and it just there was no way to stay. There's just no way. So I had run back to the front door and called his name, like, 'Victor, hurry up. You got to get out of here. It's here. The fire is here.' And so I ran into the house, and I couldn't see him."

She adds, "And I just had to get out of there. I just prayed, because he had his car ready in the driveway, and I said, 'Oh, please Lord, just lift him enough to get him to his car.' And that's what I prayed all night. I just prayed that he managed to get up and get to the car. Forget trying to grab anything, just get yourself to the car.

Now, Shari is left to remember her soft-spoken brother, an avid sports fan who followed the local teams, had a deep affinity for history and took the roads less traveled in life.

"He was always fascinated with back roads or highways like Route 66, all the unique little sites along the way," Shari says, adding that her brother excelled as a navigator, renowned for knowing his way around L.A. through his work as a courier.

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"We got closer as we got older," she says. "So it will be a tremendous loss. Losing him was just, just in that situation, I hate that he went out like that. Sometimes you don't have a choice in how you go out. I mean, if that's your destiny, that's your destiny, but that's how I believe."

Shari adds, "But I just could never have imagined that he would go out like that, and in such an inhumane way. But he was a hero, in my eyes, because he was trying to save the house. He thought he was going to be able to do that, and he tried, and in the end, he just couldn't do it. He probably didn't think it was going to be that bad. None of us did."

Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.