I Was a Victim of Arson

Reporting a crime may result in you becoming the victim. In July, 2000 I reported a rape case for a mentally challenged girl who came to me for help since she could not get ahold of her mother. I reported the crime. The accused two brothers of this crime found out. Two weeks after making the report they burnt my home down while I was sleeping. This affected me in such a way that I wrote a paper about it. I would like to share it with you.

Everything was lost, as we stared horrified at the burning debris. In the midst of a beautiful summer night, a disaster came crushing down on our lives. We stood their traumatized staring at the fire in disbelief. This occured on the fifth of July of the year of 2000.

On the fourth of July 2000, my husband and I would often work at the riverfront in Harrisburg doing concessions. This night was a perfect night, the warmth felt great as it was not a sticky or a suffocating warmth. The skies were clear with not one cloud in the sky, as the stars lit up in the sky in which was visible as far as the eye can see. People walked around in losse and comfortable clothes. It was a busy night to be working the concessions while everyone rushed to get their fills before the fireworks started.

The fireworks were so great and nothing interferered with this spectacular show. "Ahhh's, could be heard from everywhere as the fireworks exploded in the sky.
Overall it was a great night. Not just because it was beautiful but also due to the profit made from the customers. After the festival clean up, my husband and I were eager to go home. With the extreme commotion and the mental anguish that the night played on us, we could not wait till we got home so that we could get to sleep.

At this time I was five months pregnant and as miserable as I could possibly feel. I felt like a bloated whale just waiting to pop. I already had a one and a half year old daughter, however this pregnancy was not easy as the first. Neverless, after all of the evenings work behind me, I wanted to sleep the hard work away.
We arrived at home about one o'clock July the fifth. After a nice hot shower, I barely made it into bed before passing out. Nothing and I mean nothing normally awakes me when I am in a deep sleep. The world could be coming to it's end and I probally wouldn't wake from all of the noise. This makes it very difficult to try to manage my family during these hours.

"Oh, what the heck, what time is it?" I can recall aksing myself when I was awakened. Something woke me up, now this was very unusual. I turned my fan on since my room was now hot. I set the fan on osculation and went back to sleep. It didn't take more than a few seconds until I was out again in a deep sleep.

"What is that smell?" this time I jumped out of bed. A terrible smell of smoke was bothering me. This didn't smell like an ordinary smoke. I looked at the clock in which showed 2:10AM in its bold indigo lighting. The time didn't register in my tired mind at this point, so I went back to sleep. We lived in the borough and were allowed to burn trash, so I assumed that is where the smoke was coming from. It felt right and I was content with that.

Again, I was I woke up. However this time I woke up choking on smoke. The fan supplied me with a gasp of airy smoke and then next with just thick smoke.I opened my eyes and coul;d not see anything besides a blackish gray haze everywhere. "Robert, Robert wake up", I shook my husband to get him up. He did not respond so I began to panic. I thought to myself "oh no, he must have carbon monoxide poisoning. I freaked out and lost all insight as to what I should do.
I felt like someone had wiped my thoughts clean.

Action was needed so I began shaking my husband over and over again. "Robert, Robert get up, wake up now, something is burning, he opened his eyes to see nothing but black smoke as I screamed at him vigorously that something was burning. He was stunned for a short while and then snapped into the reality and reacted by fleeing at of the bed. He did not say anything, but ran thru the house in attempts to find out what was burning and to get the fire extinguisher.

He was not very succesfull as I heard him trip and fall a several times. I heard him scream, Why aren't the fire alarms going off? I didn't respond but instead took off to get my daughter. Feeling the walls as I left the room as I was trying to look thru a haze of black smoke blindness. Nothing was visible; we were literally working as blind person(s) but with no help of a walking cane or a seeing dog. As I felt along the walls, I felt the door jam of my daughters room. I flung open the door, only to see nothing but bright orange. Flames were everywhere on her outside wall of her room. I was thankful that the flames had not made reached the inside of her walls yet.

The sight of the flames flickering and lighting her entire room up made me really panic. In a hurry, I grabbed up my sweet little girl up in my arms while she remained sleeping in nothing but her diaper. I again assumed. This time I thought my husband would know that I was going to get our daughter after I woke him up. Therefore I proceeded to feel the walls on my way so that I could get to the back door. Everything happened so quick, I dont recall if I kicked the back door open or not. Next I just remember jumping out of the door with my daughter wrapped tightly in my arms.

"Oh no", I began to cry as I realized that my husband had not made it out yet. I feared for his life, but felt helpless that I could not go back in. My little daughter depended on me. I couldnt just sit her down and then go look for him. As I stood there baffled and in extreme terror, I debated what I should do but didn't know what to do. Just then my husband came rushing out of the back door. I was so thankful to see him make it out okay. We asked eachother what started the fire but neither one of us knew. I am guessing that I was about fifty degrees outside; my daughter was awakened by the cool chill on her bare skin. I wrapped her little body with my arms as much as I could to keep her warm. He little eyes looked at me so innocent in which me cry even harder.

We rounded to the front of the house. Flames were along three of the four sides of the house. One of our vehicles was pushed up onto our porch and on fire as well. Everything that we had was burning to nothing, By this time my husband and daughter were now crying. My little girl stared at the house and asked what is this? I had not answer for her, I just held her tighter for comfort.

We had just bought the home and had no savings being that we paid cash for our home in full. He had not obtained home owners insurance yet due to that we made the purchase a few weeks previously. Everything was lost. I felt as if my life was passing me by. A neighbor called the fire police. He was also a firefighter so he was the first on the scene. He tried to use his garden hose until the others came for help. In the meantime his wife came out with some of her sons clothes, so that we could get my daughter dressed.

The fire police had arrived to put out the flames. It took many hours of watering the home and vehicle to ensure that the flames were out and that it would not ignite once again. "This fire was intentional", a member of the fire police stated to us. He said that it appears that a chemical had been thrown onto the exterior surface of the house and that the car was intentionally pushed onto the porch and was ignited as well with the use of a chemical. The car was nothing but bare metal with it's engine melted onto my porch.They literally had to use a crowbar to pry the melted engine off of the porch to move the car back. This was such a dreadful sight. We were informed that the fire alarms did not go off due to that they were electric. Meaning that they ran thru electric wires used in the room. This really baffled me. Why would fire alarms be ran like that for any reason. It seemed useless. Like in this situation, the wires were burnt before the alarms could give a warning.

The crew informed my family that we were real lucky that we made it out when we did. The home was an 70's model and was built with 4x4's. The fire burnt into all except for a half an ince into the wood. If I would have went back to sleep, the roof would have collapsed on my family and more than likely killed us. They stated that if this was a newer home made out of 2x4's, we would have not been so lucky. There were so many feelings flooding me at this time. I wanted so bad to pinch myself and wake up from this nightmare. I felt bombarded, police were aksing a million questions and I had no answers for them. Quite frankly I didn't want to talk about it at that time either.

Next we had to clear our minds to figure out what we had to do next. We were allowed to go into the home but just to get things that we needed that may have been salvagable. I grabbed nothing but clothes. I left jewelry and all. Heavy soot covered everything inside the home. It took fierce washing just to get out clothes to look clean again, this isnt saying that we got all of the smoke and soot out of them. For our misfortune, the American Red Cross offered us a three night stay at a hotel and a fifty dollar food gift certifcate. No other help was offered, as we had to begin our lives over with nothing.

The remainder of my pregnancy was spent sleeping on my grandmothers living room floor. This was the only place that my family could stay as a family. I contacted shelters but none would take the entire family. My daughter and I would have to go to a womans shelter and then my husband to a mans shelter. I couldnt go thru that. My family needed to be together to help support eachother thru this loss. We did what we had to do. Now on top of feeling like a bloated whale, I felt extreme depression and was in contact worry.

"It was my fault", my doctors were trying to tell me. My son was not growing. I ate and boy did I eat. I was going thru depression but in no way would I neglect my children. After several weeks of this type of treatment from the hospital they found out why my con was not growing. During my last trimester, he had not received any nutrients from me. After the home fire, my placenta gave out. By the time that they realized this I was only two weeks away from my due date. Next they gave my a choice, either to have an emergency c-section or to take the chance and carry to the end of my term. Carrying my baby for the next two weeks could result in giving birth to him as a still born. First off, I felt like this shouldn't even by a choice. My baby had not received any nutrients from my body for the last two and a half months, and they were allowing me to make a decision that could result in the death of my baby. I felt disgruntled by this. Needless to say, my choice was the emergency c-section.

Now we needed to figure out how we were going to supply a home for our expanded family. My husband ended up having to settle with a twenty percent interest rate for a new mortgage, due to poor credit in which was getting worse every day. After the fire, we practically lived off of credit cards and had very little cash. We ended up going backrupy from trying to start over again. It was absolutely horrible.

The girl who we helped by reporting the crime was mentally challanged. She was thirteen but was in special educational classes due to that her mind was that of a none years olds. The boys who raped her were twin brothers of the age of twently one years old. Out of revenge from their dirty acts they tried to kill my family. The mothers of the girl dropped all charges for her daughter. her reply for doing so was that she didn't want her home burnt down next since they were still on the streets. Regardless of this misfortune, I am thankful that my family's lives have been spared.

The last that I heard about this girl is that the charges were dropped. They were dropped by her stating that she wanted to have sex with these men. Still don't make it right though, the boys should have still been sentenced for the crime of statuory rape.

I know longer speak with the girl or her mother. My families lives were jeoparized to help protect her. Would I do it differenlty if I could? The loss, grief, and despair all have played a permanent role on my family.This was seven years ago and we are still feeling the impact . For my family's sake I would have to honestly say that I would do it differently. I suppose a simple phone call for the police to come and talk to the girl would have done the job.

The arsonists did two years in county prison. The courts only would grant me half of my restitution since I could not furnish receipts for my claim. The Chief District Attorney, pleaded with the judge, advising him that everything was burnt and lost however it did no good.

Please think of yourself and your family first before reporting a crime. They allow anonymous reports to protect those who are reporting crimes. I am not saying don't report the crime. I am simply saying report it but make sure that you dont give them your name, inform them that you want to report a crime anonymously.