A woman was arrested Wednesday in an arson in which she instructed her 11-year-old son to light her minivan on fire, causing him to accidentally catch himself on fire, Henderson Police said.
Juanita D. Carr, 30, was booked at the Henderson Detention Center on Wednesday on counts of arson, conspiracy to commit arson and child abuse with substantial bodily harm.
Carr was behind on payments for the vehicle and recently spent $1,200 for repairs that didn’t fix the minivan, Henderson Police spokesman Keith Paul said.
Carr’s son and an 18-year-old friend took the van without Carr’s permission to a neighborhood near Sam Boyd Stadium on Wiesner Way, Paul said.
When Carr learned where the vehicle was, she had her son and the teen take her there and bought a gallon of gasoline of the way, Paul said.
She instructed her son pour the gas inside the minivan and set it on fire, he said. In the process, the boy’s clothes caught fire, too, Paul said.
Carr reported that the boy dove to the ground and she patted him to put out the flames, Paul said. She then called 911, and the boy was transported to University Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries, he said.
Henderson Police were searching for the 18-year-old to question him about the incident, authorities said.
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