Sam Nash’s relatives sought answers about the emergency response long before the woman who set the fire received a 24-year prison term.
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — More than a year after Sam Nash’s family rushed to a burning apartment building and learned the 71-year-old was still inside, a judge has sentenced the woman responsible for starting the fire to 24 years in prison.
The sentence imposed on Rashamba Claybrooks, 29, resolves the central criminal prosecution stemming from the April 8, 2025, blaze near 30th Street and Capitol Drive. Claybrooks pleaded guilty in April 2026 to felony murder tied to arson of a building and to arson of property other than a building. She will also serve eight years of extended supervision after leaving prison. For Nash’s relatives, however, the court case developed alongside another issue that surfaced almost immediately after the fire: how a man whose family said responders had been told he was inside remained in his third-floor apartment until relatives searched for him.
Debra Nash said she had spoken with her brother near the time the emergency was unfolding. When news of a fire reached the family and Sam Nash stopped responding, she hurried to the apartment complex. In interviews with CBS 58 and FOX6 soon after his death, she said she repeatedly tried to determine whether her brother had made it out. She recalled being told that the building had been cleared. That information gave her a measure of relief, she said, because it suggested her brother was no longer in danger even though family members had not located him outside.
The relief did not last. Nash’s son went to his father’s apartment later that afternoon to check for himself. According to the investigation described in later court reporting, he initially did not see his father. A subsequent search located Nash unresponsive near a kitchen table and wall inside the third-floor unit. Emergency personnel were summoned. Authorities later determined that Nash had died from smoke inhalation caused by the fire. Local reports from the first days after the blaze differed in their descriptions of precisely where he was pronounced dead, but all identified the apartment fire as the event that caused his death.
The sequence prompted Nash’s family to challenge what they had been told at the scene. Debra Nash asked reporters how her brother could have been missed after relatives had drawn attention to his apartment. CBS 58 reported that the Milwaukee Fire Department said both fire and police investigations were active and that it could not discuss additional details at that stage. FOX6 also reported that it sought a response from the department. The publicly available reports reviewed for this story do not establish a later official finding that explains the family’s concerns about the search of Nash’s unit.
While those questions remained, investigators built the criminal case around what happened two floors below. Police had initially been sent to the building shortly before 2:30 p.m. for an assault complaint. Before officers arrived, the call changed to an active fire. Investigators determined that the flames began in a first-floor apartment occupied by Claybrooks’ boyfriend. Smoke traveled upward through the building, reaching apartments above and entering Nash’s third-floor unit. Video from the scene showed smoke moving into Nash’s window, according to an arrest affidavit described by Law&Crime.
The boyfriend told investigators that he and Claybrooks had spent part of the day arguing, including during a trip to Walmart. The conflict continued after they returned home. According to his account in court documents, Claybrooks threw something at him and he told her she needed to move out. Investigators said she then used cardboard and loose paper to ignite clothing inside a closet. The boyfriend smelled smoke after she left, found the closet burning and retrieved a fire extinguisher from the hallway. He tried to put the fire out, only to detect smoke again and discover that the blaze had become larger.
Fire investigators concluded that the fire had been deliberately set. In the first hours afterward, Milwaukee police publicly described the cause as suspicious and said they were looking for a known suspect. The American Red Cross assisted displaced residents, and the fire became a homicide investigation after Nash’s death. Yet the first charges filed against Claybrooks on April 23, 2025, did not accuse her of causing Nash’s death. Prosecutors initially charged arson of a building, arson of property, disorderly conduct and two misdemeanor counts of bail jumping.
That distinction mattered deeply to Nash’s family. In April 2025, Debra Nash told FOX6 that she wanted the criminal case to recognize that her brother had died. At that point, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office said the investigation was continuing. The absence of an initial homicide charge reflected the stage of the prosecution at that time, not the final disposition of the case. Over the following year, the legal case changed, eventually producing the felony murder charge to which Claybrooks pleaded guilty.
By the April 2026 plea hearing, the prosecution had moved beyond the allegations filed just after the fire. Court records cited by FOX6 show Claybrooks pleaded guilty to felony murder based on arson of a building and to arson of property other than a building. People reported that the disorderly-conduct and bail-jumping counts were dismissed under a plea agreement. The same court records showed that Claybrooks had earlier entered pleas of not guilty by reason of mental disease before changing course and accepting responsibility through guilty pleas.
The plea also brought Nash’s death into the core of the criminal judgment. The man whom initial charging documents had identified as a deceased resident of the building became the victim named in the felony murder case. The court eventually ordered Claybrooks to spend 24 years in prison and another eight years under extended supervision. The sentence means the total period of court supervision will extend beyond the prison term, though the publicly available reports reviewed here do not provide a detailed transcript of the judge’s reasoning at sentencing.
For Nash’s family, his identity had never been secondary. Relatives described him as a former U.S. Marine and a dependable figure who cared for his family. Later reporting said he had helped siblings and his three children after the deaths of his parents and assisted relatives during serious illnesses. His sister also described him encouraging her through professional training, including helping pay for an exam and checking that she was preparing for it. Those memories offered a broader account of a man whose name first appeared in breaking-news reports as the 71-year-old victim of a suspicious fire.
The criminal case now has a defined outcome that was missing during the family’s first days of grief. Claybrooks has admitted the offenses, the court has imposed its sentence, and Nash’s death is formally part of the felony murder conviction. The separate concern raised by relatives about how Nash remained inside after they said they were told the building had been cleared was publicly documented at the time. The sources reviewed for this report do not show a final public explanation resolving that issue.
Author note: Last updated September 21, 2026.