CENTER, Ind. (WISH-TV) — Crime-scene tape fluttered in the wind Wednesday outside the home of 73-year-old Pamela K. Hunter.

Hunter was found dead in her home during a fire on Christmas Day. Her death was later ruled a homicide by the Howard County Coroner’s Office.

At 12:30 p.m. Monday, the Howard County 911 Dispatch Center received a report of smoke coming from a house in the 3300 block of County Road 300 South. That’s about a mile west of the city of Kokomo in an unincorporated community called Center.

I-Team 8 on Wednesday listened to 911 tapes, which shed more light on the case

Caller: “Oh, my God. The house is on fire.”

Dispatcher: “Ma’am, are there still people inside?”

Caller: “Hey, are there people inside? (pause) Yes, there’s people inside. Oh, my God, this is bad.”

Later in the call, the neighbor told the 911 dispatcher about a person who lived with Hunter. “She took in this man who is homeless, and they’re living together for a while. He’s significantly younger than her.”

Dispatcher: “Have they been having some problems?”

Yes,” replied the neighbor.

Neighbors told I-Team 8 Wednesday that person living with Hunter was 44-year-old Curtis L. Freeman. The Howard County Sheriff’s Office, in a Wednesday night news release, reported that he’d been preliminarily charged with murder and arson. Freeman was not listed as an inmate on Wednesday night on the sheriff’s app.

After the fire in the north central Indiana community, Freeman was identified as a person of interest by police, and arrested Tuesday a three-hour drive in Dubois County in southern Indiana on an unrelated warrant.

The neighbor said during the 911 call, “I think he’s very abusive to her.”

People who live next door to Hunter did not want to be identified Wednesday but told I-Team 8 seemed to be something off about Freeman.

A neighbor told I-Team 8, “They both came over here for this garage sale we were having this past summer, and she came up close to my wife and I said, ‘I’m afraid of him. He’s hot-tempered.’”

They said she never asked them for help.

The neighbor said, “You can’t force your help on somebody if they’re not asking for your help.”

The Howard County Sheriff’s Office said Hunter’s initial cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma. An autopsy will confirm if that’s the case.

Neighbor Sonja Bray told I-Team 8 that Hunter “didn’t deserve that. She really didn’t.”

Every neighbor I-Team 8 spoke with says Hunter was a kind person who would do anything to help people.

Bray said, “I just hope people say prayers for the family that are left behind. The family members left behind and remember her. It’s sad.”

(Photos provided by Howard County Sheriff’s Office of Pamela K. Hunter and Curtis L. Freeman)