# "I know I look scary, but I won't hurt you, just please help me," she pleaded. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 19, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800 "2004-07-19T12:50:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/1 "2004-07-19T12:50:05Z")
It’s times like this I wish I were a Believer, so I could think that there’s a special place in hell for people like Genaro Remigio Garcia. Calling him things like an asswipe dipshit motherfucker is trivializing what he did, so I have no real rant. At least he died too. That’s a small comfort. [“Horrific agony” in Pierce County killings](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001980054_burn15m.html) > [@](#): > > BUCKLEY — “He did this on purpose,” the young woman — lungs scorched and skin charred — screamed in her final hours of life yesterday. “He poured gas on me and my babies.” > > A day earlier, Antigone “Mona” Allen had decided to give her estranged boyfriend, Genaro Remigio Garcia, one more chance. She’d left him a month before, tired of the bruises and his controlling ways. > > So when he pulled up at her mother’s house in Parkland, Pierce County, late Tuesday night, 18-year-old Allen packed their three sleeping children in the back of his Lincoln Town Car, expecting to go home. > > Garcia, 24, had another plan. As Allen nodded off, he stopped to fill up a gas can. He took a back road near Bonney Lake away from the Puyallup apartment they shared. > > She awoke to see him snorting coke, something she’d never seen him do before. He pulled a .45-caliber pistol and pointed it at her head. He grabbed the gas can and splashed himself, Allen and their children — Christine, 2 ½, Kristian, 18 months, and Adam, 6 months — and flicked a lighter. > > The car burst into flames, careened off the road and flipped over in a dark pasture. The children, trapped inside, died at the crash scene. Allen staggered from the wreckage, engulfed in flames. Garcia followed, also on fire, and began shooting at her as she screamed and ran across a field. Garcia walked and fired until the gun jammed and fell from his incinerated hands, according to police. He collapsed, and arrived dead at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. > > Allen, who would have been 19 Saturday, died eight hours later, also at Harborview, after telling her story to rescuers and family, and giving funeral instructions for her children and Garcia. > > … ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/2 "2004-07-19T13:10:42Z")
Wow. Just Wow. Burning to death is right at the top of my list of bad ways to go. That article sends chills down my spine. ---
**Author:** ![Bibliovore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Bibliovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bibliovore)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/3 "2004-07-19T13:18:27Z")
They were both on fire _and_ he was shooting at her? Holy shit! ---
**Author:** ![Elysian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c77e96/32.png) [@Elysian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysian)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/4 "2004-07-19T13:21:44Z")
That makes me want to cry. A friend of mine was in the back of a truck that caught on fire from paint fumes. People stopped to help, and all he (and the other men) wanted was water poured over their hands and faces and legs. What really kills me is that the men were very polite. They stood with their hands out and asked “Please, could I have some water?” So pitiful. _sniff_ That she should be in so much pain and tell others that she looked “scary” but wouldn’t hurt them. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/5 "2004-07-19T13:33:08Z")
The atoms are not real, but the moral context most certainly is. This woman deserves our worship. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/6 "2004-07-19T14:03:14Z")
:eek: Wow. I… wow. Some people are just plain evil. How in the world could a person do this? To his own kids. His woman. Those poor children, that poor girl. I hope the bastard rots in hell, provided there is one. What an horrific story. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Denis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@Denis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Denis)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/7 "2004-07-19T14:07:10Z")
I heard news updates of this story as it was happening. Horrifying stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/8 "2004-07-19T14:15:41Z")
My God. I am reminded of a high school classmate of mine who, when she was 21, drove to a county park, doused the inside of her car with gasoline, and lit a match. I can’t imagine how miserable she must have felt her life was, to choose that way of leaving it. I will always remember the date, because it was the day before I started a new job and met my future husband. Rest in peace, Jodi. You were a part of the clique of girls who loved to pick on me, but you yourself were always nice to me. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/9 "2004-07-19T14:29:54Z")
Yes, burning deaths are hard to forget. My best friends boydriend was pissed and lighting a smoke on the stove. He caught himself on fire. Wearing jeans and a cotton sweatshirt. Being drunk he wasn’t thinking logicaly. The neighbours saw him running down the driveway ablaze and went out and put the hose on him. By the time the ambulance arrived every stich of clothing was burned off him. He died about 2 hours later. When we went to his flat the next day there were singe marks in the carpet that showed what he did. He even got in the shower and scrabbled at the walls but didn’t manage to turn the water on. He was a lovely bloke with many faults and I can’t imagine many worse ways to go. It was one of the saddest most horrific things I have ever seen. Footprints burnt in my memory and the carpet. The man from the OP was soooo far from being himself that no logic could have applied to him. What a truly tragic story. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/10 "2004-07-19T14:31:55Z")
If the details of this story, either locally or nationally, get even one girl or woman to think about leaving if she’s in an abusive relationship, the children will not have died in vain. This is a textbook example of domestic violence gone to extreme. She left him, she went back, she left him, she went back. Over and over again. She and her children are dead because she thought he’d change. People never change. Rarely, anyway. She’s not to blame for being optimistic and for loving him, but maybe if she’d heard a story like this, she would have thought twice about what she was doing. Here are some excerpts from other news stories. > [@](#): > > [Dying mother describes fiery murder-suicide](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/182204_gasdeaths15.html) > > Burning, the Towncar sped off the road and into a ditch, flipping onto its roof. > > “She tried to save the kids, but they were in their car seats and their seat belts,” LaVeda Allen said. > > Allen ran from the car, through waist-high grass, on fire. > > Garcia, also aflame, ran after her, shooting at her with a handgun. > [@](#): > > [Violent relationship ends in fiery tragedy](http://www.tribnet.com/news/story/5301491p-5239297c.html) > > … > Earlier, the Allen family had gathered at Harborview to be with her. > “All she could say was, ‘I’m sorry,’” Allen’s sister, Laveda Allen told KIRO-TV. “I think she felt more sorry for us as a family than for herself because we were without all of them.” > As her sister neared death, Allen said she asked her sister, “‘Are you ready to go?’ and she said, ‘No, I’m scared,’ When I asked her why she was scared, she said, ‘Because I didn’t get to say goodbye to everyone.’ After she’d seen everybody, she just let go.” This one requires registration, but it’s short so I’m just going to post it. These are the people who are always forgotten. > [@](#): > > [Deaths of children hit rescuers especially hard](http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_071404WArescuersreactSW.2fb42d74d.html) > > BONNEY LAKE, Wash. - The death of a child is enough to traumatize anyone, but the East Pierce County Fire Department station was already reeling from one tragic accident when they were called to respond to the crime they say will change their lives forever. > > Lt. Doug Walker is a veteran firefighter with East Pierce County, but he can’t seem to shake the horrific events of the last 24 hours. > > “I will never forget July 13, 2004, ever. It will impact me for the rest of my life,” said Walker. > > The lieutenant and his partner were the first to respond when a toddler who wandered away from his daycare drowned in Lake Tapps. As a father, Walker hoped that would be his last call. > > “I was numb, that was the feeling I had. It was a mechanism that your body has where you just can’t take any more in emotionally and you just put up a force shield,” he said. > > But no one could have predicted the terrible crime that would devastate the community just hours later. > > Walker’s crew was the first to discover the charred remains of three children set ablaze by their father. > > “I turned around at that time and took about two steps and the trauma of the day hit me like a freight train and it dropped me to my knees,” he said. > > Walker knew he wasn’t alone and immediately asked for relief for his emotionally exhausted team. > > Behind the helmets and under the gear, these are men and women who couldn’t help but think of their own families. > > “I knew right then I was done, after the incident, I wasn’t going to be able to help anybody, I was having enough trouble helping myself,” said Walker. “I think sometimes the care givers are very good at taking care of people but not very good at taking care of themselves.” > > The department is making counselors available to all involved. Walker already had planned the next four days off, but he knows the images from this past shift will last long after his vacation. > > “I’m not looking forward to how this is going to affect me in the near future or long term. I just know it will affect me,” he said. > > Walker is also a fire victim who knows the pain of severe burns. He said he hopes the young victims were quickly rendered unconscious, suffering for only a few seconds. > > The seventh fatality from the terrible day came when a car veered off a road near Orting, killing the driver inside. That call was also handled by East Pierce Fire and Rescue. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/11 "2004-07-19T14:42:57Z")
I didn’t mean to sound heartless in my last post, like I was blaming her. I’m heartbroken for her and for those poor children. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/12 "2004-07-19T14:51:48Z")
> [@Bibliovore](#): > > They were both on fire _and_ he was shooting at her? Holy shit! Seems like overkill. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/13 "2004-07-19T14:58:48Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > Seems like overkill. BOO! :mad: :wally I’m guessing the coke helped him focus on shooting at his beeeyotch while he was on fire. Dick. ---
**Author:** ![Leonard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@Leonard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leonard)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/14 "2004-07-19T14:59:50Z")
From the last article a couple of posts up, > [@](#): > > Walker is also a fire victim who knows the pain of severe burns. He said he hopes the young victims were quickly rendered unconscious, suffering for only a few seconds. If it makes anyone feel any better, I was also a fairly severe burn victim, and from my experience, I would guess that the children most likely were quickly rendered unconcious. It took me probably 15-20 mins. before I ever felt the pain. It’s just too much too fast and your whole body goes numb. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/15 "2004-07-19T15:07:45Z")
Goodbye Mona. Goodbye, Little Ones. You put up with more shit than anybody should be obliged to. ☹☹☹ ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/16 "2004-07-19T15:37:31Z")
> [@Inigo Montoya](#): > > BOO! :mad: :wally > > I’m guessing the coke helped him focus on shooting at his beeeyotch while he was on fire. Dick. OK, that looks mean. **Otto** That was a good natured ‘boo.’ I was referring to The Bad Man as the dick, not you. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/17 "2004-07-19T18:06:03Z")
The mother was only 15 when she had the first child, who was 2 1/2 years old, and also has an 18-month-old and a 6-month-old. So that means the father was 20 and the mother 15 when they first got together. There should have never been any more children. The father should have been put away for statutory rape, right? It’s too bad he didn’t because maybe this wouldn’t have happened. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/18 "2004-07-19T19:02:09Z")
According to the article linked in the OP, the mother of the victim wanted to press those charges, but her daughter refused to cooperate. Charges were never filed. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/19 "2004-07-19T22:24:05Z")
Of all the ways to die or be hurt, fire is the one that fills me with the greatest horror and dread. If I was caught in a fire I honestly think I’d jump to my death from a burning building, rather than burn. That poor mother and kids. I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes thinking about what they went through. I keep thinking there has to be a _purpose_ to it. As my mother has said, “When I finally see God face to face I’m going to have some mighty big '_Whys?’_ to ask him about.” “Through a mirror, darkly” and all that. May God grant them rest. May light perpetual shine upon them. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800/20 "2004-07-19T23:17:33Z")
Elysian, Scarlett67, calm kiwi, wow, what terrible stories. Leonard, what you say is comforting to me. The babies didn’t suffer as much as their mother and I’m sure she was told that and was comforted. I can guess a tiny amount about how badly you were burned. I read an article about the Rhode Island Great White fire and remember reading a doctor saying that he’d bypass people who were screaming in agony because they at least had nerves. The people who were badly burned but didn’t seem to be in pain were actually in more immediate danger because there was more damage, deeper, through the nerves. I’m so so sorry. > [@Baker](#): > > Of all the ways to die or be hurt, fire is the one that fills me with the greatest horror and dread. If I was caught in a fire I honestly think I’d jump to my death from a burning building, rather than burn. Same here. I remember the day after 9/11, I was reading an article that quoted someone who saw the jumpers. They said “People do stupid things when they’re desperate” and I wanted to strangle him! It wasn’t “stupid” to jump out of the building. It was tragic. People do tragic things when they’re desperate. I wanted to ask him “you think they had a choice? you think they’d calmly think well, here I am burning to death, can’t breathe, help’s not coming and that window with its fresh air and quick death looks mighty nice, but it’d be really stupid of me to jump, so I won’t”? Argh. There used to be a man who was terribly burned, horrifyingly disfigured, who would walk through the trains in Chicago, asking for money for an operation. I’d heard he was in a car crash. I felt so sorry for him. I haven’t seen him for years and don’t know what happened to him. I know I would rather be dead, but he carried on. I don’t know how. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-know-i-look-scary-but-i-wont-hurt-you-just-please-help-me-she-pleaded/255800.md?page=2)