PASADENA, Texas – How Hector Garcia got trapped inside his own bedroom is a mystery, but what is clear is that he was very well-loved by friends and family.
Sam Abernathy was one of Garcia's Pasadena childhood friends. He was the first to show up Monday with flowers and a personal message.
"I don't even know what to say man it's just, 'I love you man,'" said Abernathy. "I'm just sorry you're gone man."
"Me and my husband, we awoke because we could hear screaming," said Jacqueline Maldonado, a neighbor and witness to the fire.
Maldonado said the screaming came from Garcia's mother, Lupita Contreras, as her husband Moses tried to keep her from running back into the burning house.
WATCH: Neighbor captures Pasadena house fire where a father was pulled from the raging flames
Maldonado's husband immediately called 911.
"One of the policeman, you could hear him saying 'come to my voice if you can hear me,'" Maldonado recalled.
Friends and family tell Channel 2 Garcia worked as an electrician and had three kids.
His parents who lived at the house were unharmed.
Preliminary reports suggest Garcia died of smoke inhalation.
He was 41-years-old.