A 50-year-old Tarboro woman died early Wednesday after the duplex apartment she lived in caught fire when she fell asleep cooking.

Sharon Louise Staton, of 402 Dowd St. was pronounced dead at 1:37 a.m. Wednesday at Heritage Hospital. Officer D.C. Owens of the Tarboro Police Department said she died from smoke inhalation.

She worked at Wal-Mart in River Oaks Shopping Center in Tarboro.

North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper Fred Demuth and Northampton County Sheriff's Deputy Mitch Pittman were at the corner of West Wilson and Dowd streets, patrolling for a vehicle chase, when they noticed fire coming from the roof of 402 Dowd St.

After they awoke Dennis Hagan, Staton's duplex apartment neighbor, asked him if anyone lived next door, he told them an elderly woman did.

After the policemen knocked on Staton's door and got no response, Demuth kicked her door in and found her lying on the floor five feet from the door.

Demuth told Tarboro Police he tried to pull Staton out by her arm, but that her skin pulled from the bone when he did. Pittman and he pulled her out of the house by her clothes, and afterwards, Edgecombe County Rescue Squad's Harvey Johnson and Tarboro Fire Department's Kermit Perkins arrived and began performing CPR on Staton. She was then taken by ambulance to Heritage Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

After Tarboro Fire Department contained the blaze, arson investigator Ken Ruffin determined that it started because of a pot left cooking on a stove.

Michael Staton, the deceased's son, also of 402 Dowd St., told police that his mother did take sleeping pills and had left food cooking on a stove before.

Annie Brown, of 406 Dowd St., said she heard a crackling noise early Wednesday and checked outside to see if someone was trying to break into her house. When she didn't see anybody, she said she went back inside.

She didn't realize there was a fire at her neighbor's until another neighbor came to her door and told her the duplex next to their's was in flames.

Ernest Rogers, also of 406 Dowd St. said he was lucky that his apartment did not catch fire.

But Brown said she felt "not good at all" about her neighbor's apartment being on fire and not knowing it.