Edward Humes - Burned: A Story of a Murder and the Crime that Wasn’t

Buried Secrets

Murderer with a Badge

Mean Justice

Baby ER

School of Dreams

Over Here

No Matter How Loud I Shout

Mississippi Mud

Monkey Girl

Eco Barons

Force of Nature

A Man and His Mountain

Garbology

Door to Door

The banging and screaming began shortly after midnight, fists rattling the front door, a womans voice crying and moaning for help.

Shirley and Bob Robison, ready for bed and relieved that the heat wave plaguing Los Angeles that week had abated at last, stumbled through the dark house and threw open the door.

On the welcome mat stood their young neighbordisheveled in her nightgown and housecoat, shaking and wailing. My babies, Jo Ann Parks gasped. Help them, please, please. Theyre still in there!

The Robisons needed no explanation for what there meant. A garish orange light had painted their white stucco house the color of glowing coals. The weedy driveway normally obscured by darkness at this hour was lit up, and the Robisons could feel the furnace-hot air pumping up its length like a chimney stack. At the back end of the driveway, the converted garage apartment blazed.

The twenty-three-year-old Parks, her husband, and their three small children had moved into this dingy rental in the cramped Los Angeles suburb of Bell less than a week before, clothes and knickknacks and photo albums still piled in half-unpacked boxes, the place a mess. Now the apartment crackled and hissed, flames flaring as bright as camera flashes in the darkness, revealing gouts of black smoke pouring up into a leaden, starless sky.

My children! Parks shrieked. Theyre in back!

Bob hesitated. He was too old for this, he thought. At fifty-seven, his health wasnt the greatest. He was bone tired, his job wearing him down day by day. But... three little kids. Three little kids trapped in a burning house. Somebody had to do something. Staring at the doorway Parks had left open, he could see inside to the front room of the apartment, the master bedroom, flames and smoke roiling inside. He told his wife to call 911. Then Bob Robison took a deep breath, held it, and screwed up his eyes as if he were jumping off the high dive platform. He walked to the door and disappeared inside.

Shirley and Parks gawked at the doorway, then ran back into the front house to phone for help. Then they raced back to the driveway, waiting for the fire engines, waiting for Bob, waiting for the children to emerge. Parks started moving toward the doorway into the burning house, too, but Shirley grabbed her from behind, shouting, No, Jo Ann, dont! She wrapped her arm around Parkss shoulders and would not let go, certain a distraught woman could not survive long in that house in her flimsy summer nightclothes. You cant go in there.

Parks seemed to be bordering on hysteria to Shirley, but the younger woman heeded the command and didnt fight to free herself. After that, she made no more moves toward entering the house.

Oh, God, Parks moaned a few seconds later. She spoke so softly, Shirley had trouble hearing what she said next. But it sounded something like I hope Ronnie wasnt playing with matches again.

What was that? Shirley asked. Ronnie Jr. was the Parkses oldest child and only boy, four years old, clever, occasionally mischievous. Was Jo Ann really revealing that the fire could be Ronnies fault? Or was she just gibbering her fears and guesses in a moment of hysteria? Shirley couldnt tell. Nearly three decades would go by, her husband long passed, and still she would wonder just what Jo Ann Parks had said in that moment, and what, if anything, it meant.

Shirley pulled her eyes away from the fire, which seemed to be growing more intense with each passing second. She asked, Jo Ann? What did you say Ronnie did?

Parks shook her head, though whether that gesture came in negation, regret at her words, or simply to clear her head, Shirley once again could not tell. Jo Ann had seemed a bit odd to Shirley, no doubt about that. But this did not seem like the time to press the point, not with the apartment aflame and three little children in jeopardy. So Shirley just hugged the younger woman again around the shoulders, stayed close, and murmured words of comfort.

My babies, Parks said. Will he find them? Will they be okay? She kept repeating variations of this. It sounded almost like a chant.

Shirley didnt know what to say. The apartment, with its 528 square feet of living space, had become an inferno. The heat was growing painful just standing in the driveway. She could not see her husband through the open door and feared he might not be able to save himself, much less three kids. And where were the police? Where were the fire trucks? Had it been only seconds since she called 911? It seemed like many minutes to her. It seemed like forever.

Yes, Shirley finally said. Yes. Help is on the way. Theyre going to be all right. But she didnt really believe it, not for a second.