COACH'S SUICIDE STUNS NEIGHBORS.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

Roy Kasenge was a well-liked man, a good father to his two sons and a youth soccer coach who loved children, according to his friends and neighbors.

People who knew Kasenge were stunned Thursday when he died in a fire in his Canyon Country home. They were further shocked Friday to learn his death appeared to be a suicide.

Kasenge's death shook residents in the close-knit neighborhood where they knew him and his sons as active participants in the American Youth Soccer Organization for the past six years.

``He was very active in the community,'' neighbor Shari Christianson said. ``He was really great. This is quite a shock.''

Kasenge, 44, volunteered as an AYSO soccer coach and referee and had planned this year to coach his younger son, Chris, a fourth-grade at Rio Vista Elementary School.

``He was always down there to support the kids,'' Roy Johnson, regional AYSO commissioner for Canyon Country, said Thursday. ``He always had a great attitude. He wasn't there for himself, but for the kids.''

Kasenge, a respiratory therapist, apparently committed suicide by splashing gasoline around his bed and setting it on fire, an sheriff's arson investigator said.

Kasenge's sons, came home Thursday afternoon to find smoke coming from their Podd Court house. His son Charlie, a 10th-grader at Valencia High School, and neighbor John Jones tried to mount the stairs to save Kasenge, but the heat and smoke were too intense.

Authorities found a gallon gasoline container and a suicide note, but did not divulge its contents. An autopsy is pending.

Christianson's husband Dave said neighbors were unaware that Kasenge was troubled.