Woman burned severely in house fire

A mother shares the agony of the troubled life that led Carlas Anderson to fall asleep in a drug hole that caught fire.

By LEANORA MINAI

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 8, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- The telephone rang at 6:15 a.m. Tuesday.

"Brace yourself," the caller told Laverne Anderson.

Her 32-year-old daughter, Carlas Anderson, was in critical condition at Tampa General Hospital with second- and third-degree burns over her face, arms and legs. She had been inside an abandoned house in St. Petersburg when fire erupted at 2:30 a.m.

Bad news arrived about her daughter in the past. Last year, Carlas Anderson spent nine months in jail on crack cocaine charges. But there were signs of hope. A mother of two, she completed a drug treatment program in November and got a job at Checkers.

"I even gave her some dishes and curtains to help start her out," said Mrs. Anderson, 53.

Still, her daughter wound up at 636 23rd Ave. S late Monday. She had been smoking crack earlier in the evening with a man, police said, and decided to stay in the building to sleep.

There was no electricity, said homicide Sgt. Mike Puetz. An oil lamp or candles might have been burning, he said.

"Our guess is she fell asleep and something ignited and she woke up," Puetz said. "There's a possibility a candle got knocked over or a cigarette got left on a mattress."

No other injuries were reported. And arson is not suspected.

Severly burned, Anderson managed to get out of the house and flag down a police officer in the 600 block of 23rd Avenue S. She was flown by helicopter to Tampa General Hospital.

Her mother racks her brain trying to determine why things went wrong for her daughter. Born and raised in St. Petersburg, she came from parents who stayed together 36 years. She dropped out of middle school and started using drugs; first marijuana, then crack cocaine.

"She got caught up in the system. Just caught up in the system," her mother said Tuesday afternoon. "She wasn't a bad child. It was just the drugs."

Religious writing hung above the table where Carlas Anderson's 7-year-old daughter, Barbara, worked on first-grade writing homework: "The Way of The Cross Leads Home," a plaque read.

"I'm still looking for answers. Why?" asked Mrs. Anderson. "If it had gotten so bad, all she had to do was call or come over and ask me if she could come home. I've never told her no."

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