Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Fire tests a struggling family

Three kids escape the blaze that took their trailer home. Their parents are arrested on child neglect charges.

By BRADY DENNIS
Published September 16, 2005

	[Times photos: Ken Helle]
	Siblings Avery Dudley, 10, Mya Minneti, 3, and Jarrett Dudley, 8, answer questions about their ordeal and how they escaped unharmed from their burning trailer home Thursday morning. The children were at a Tampa Police station waiting for the arrival of their parents.
	Fire officials said the blaze that destroyed this trailer was started by a burning candle that sparked some bedding. They said Jarrett, 8, tried to extinguish the fire with a jug of water.
	Tina Palomba, 29, and Mark Minneti, 28, who are day laborers, face charges of child neglect.
	Neighbor Eddie Vallina, 79, helped the children escape unharmed from their burning trailer, but says 8-year-old Jarrett Dudley was the real hero who kicked out a window screen and helped his sisters get out.

TAMPA - During the worst of it, as fire was swallowing the mobile home and black smoke poured underneath the bedroom door, the girl thought she and her younger siblings might die.

"I didn't know what to do," 10-year-old Avery Dudley said Thursday. "I was real scared. I started to panic."

She screamed out the window:

Someone help us! Our trailer's on fire!

Help came. Avery, her 3-year-old sister and 8-year-old brother were saved.

But the good news ends there.

A family lost the home it had struggled to afford. Two parents went to jail - crying - on felony child neglect charges. Three children sat in a police station, clutching stuffed animals and wondering what comes next.

They had moved into the white, single-wide mobile home off N Rome Avenue barely a week ago. It had been a struggle for 28-year-old Mark Minneti and 29-year-old Tina Palomba just to get there.

Previously, they had lived in a Metropolitan Ministries shelter, officials said. Court records show that in late July the couple was evicted from a home in Town 'N Country. At one point they even lived separately - Minneti and 3-year-old Mya with his parents, Palomba and the other two children with her parents - to make ends meet.

But now they were together again in the Sandpiper Mobile Home Park. Lot 3. They didn't have electricity, so Eddie Vallina, their 79-year-old neighbor over at Lot 24, let them run an extension cord from his place so they could use the refrigerator and lights at night.

Police said the children were in the process of switching schools after their most recent move and were due to start classes Monday. Minneti and Palomba, both day laborers for the temp agency Able Body, left together for work Thursday morning.

Avery and her brother, Jarrett Dudley, were in charge of caring for Mya. The children said they were playing with toy trucks and cars when the fire started just after 8 a.m.

Fire officials said a candle burning in the bedroom sparked some bedding and began to spread. They said Jarrett tried to extinguish the fire with a jug of water. No luck. He then gathered his sisters, hurried to a bedroom on the far end of the trailer and closed the door.

Across the street, Vallina (known to the children as "Mr. Eddie") learned of the fire from a maintenance man, called 911 and rushed toward the screaming children. Jarrett kicked out the window screen and helped his sisters into Vallina's arms. Within minutes, the siblings were safely in Vallina's kitchen, sipping apple juice and sharing a banana.

"The children were just hysterical," he said, smoking a pipe in his living room Thursday afternoon. "The little boy, he was really sharp. He was the hero."

Firefighters had the blaze under control within 15 minutes, but not before the fire had ravaged much of the trailer.

Police officers took the children to the District One station off Tampa Bay Boulevard, gave them T-shirts and stuffed animals and started trying to reach their parents. They asked Jarrett what he wanted to be when he grew up.

"A police or a fireman," he said, smiling.

A cute moment on a terrible day.

Police managed to reach Minneti and Palomba and summon them to the District One station. The couple arrived about 11:30 a.m., riding together on a blue Yamaha motorcycle.

Inside, they reunited with their children, thankful they were alive.

"The mother was crying and hugging the kids," said police spokeswoman Laura McElroy. "We let them spend some time together."

And then they told the couple that they were under arrest. Thirty-one minutes after they arrived, Minneti and Palomba left in the back of a police cruiser, handcuffed. Palomba cried uncontrollably. Minneti hung his head and said nothing.

They were taken to Orient Road Jail and booked on the child neglect charges. They remained in jail late Thursday in lieu of $2,000 bail each, a sum neither of them likely can afford.

State records show no prior arrests for Palomba. Minneti has been arrested twice previously in Florida - a DUI in 1997 and a charge of driving without a valid license in 2001.

The children were taken into custody by officials from the Florida Department of Children and Families. Police said they likely will be able to stay with grandparents in Clearwater and Town 'N Country after DCF workers evaluate the homes.

Back at the Sandpiper Mobile Home Park, Vallina was feeling down about the whole situation Thursday afternoon.

"They're a sweet couple. They're really hard working. They're good parents," he said. "It's a shame, but it's a mistake they made. They deserve all the breaks. I just feel so sorry for them."

McElroy felt sorry for them, too, both the parents and their children. But the law is the law, she said.

"This is a family that was just trying to pay its rent and get back on its feet, and they made a very bad choice," she said.

"Bottom line, it's a very sad case."

[Last modified September 16, 2005, 01:35:22]