Police said they arrested and charged a Florida woman who left her kids alone in a car that burst into flames while she was stealing from a mall in Oviedo.
The woman, 24-year-old Alicia Moore, parked at a Dillard’s lot around noon on May 26 and went inside the store with an unknown man, the arrest report from the Oviedo Police Department said.
According to the report, loss prevention staff saw them shoplift items for about an hour. Moore was exiting the store when she noticed her car on fire, dropped the stolen goods and ran out of the store, police said.
The report said shoppers saw the fire and saved the children from the blaze. The two children were taken to Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital and one child had first-degree burns “on her face and ears.”
Moore asked for a lawyer when she was questioned. She was taken into custody by the nearby Orlando Police Department “for outstanding warrants in other counties,” not related to the incident, the report said. Moore was charged with aggravated child neglect and arson while in jail at the Orange County Jail, according to the report.
Police said they did not know what caused the fire, but they said it was unlikely [the child] would have been hurt if Moore was not neglectful.
According to jail records, Moore also had four more charges of petty theft, battery, and assault from previous incidents and her bond was set at $48,000.