Probation revoked for mother of 11-year-old burned when van set on fire

A woman who police said had her 11-year-old son set fire to her van because it wasn’t working properly won’t be getting out of jail anytime soon.

District Judge James Bixler on Tuesday ordered Juanita Carr’s probation revoked in a separate child neglect case dating back to 2011. In that case, Carr encouraged two of her daughters to get into fistfights while she watched.

Bixler ordered Carr to spend a year in jail. She was given credit for already serving 85 days in jail.

Carr was in custody awaiting trial on one count each of third-degree arson, child abuse with substantial bodily harm and conspiracy to commit arson in the fire that left her son Ar’zjon Carr, now 12, with severe burns on more than 40 percent of his body.

An arraignment hearing is set for Nov. 7 in the arson case.

Earlier this month, Henderson Justice of the Peace Rodney Burr ruled there was enough evidence to send the case to trial in District Court.

If convicted, Carr could face two to 29 years in prison.

During the preliminary hearing before Burr, Casaree Holmes, 18, testified that his girlfriend’s little brother, Ar’zjon, had tossed lit napkins into a gasoline-soaked van under orders from Ar’zjon’s mother.

The van “exploded immediately,” he said. “All I heard was a boom and that’s when we both started running.”

Then Holmes realized Ar’zjon’s chest was on fire. “He was just screaming and crying,” Holmes said.

Police say Carr had Holmes and Ar’zjon set fire to her van because it wasn’t working properly. Carr also told detectives she was behind on payments for the van. She said she thought the 2000 Chevrolet had been stolen but later learned Holmes and Ar’zjon had taken it for a joy ride.

Holmes testified that the two took the van without permission but it overheated and they left it parked at an apartment complex. Holmes confessed to Carr after she reported the van stolen.

Carr then decided “that we were going to blow the van up,” Holmes said.

The three drove a relative’s car to retrieve the van, Holmes said. They parked it near Russell Road and Boulder Highway, not far from Sam Boyd Stadium. Then they went to a 7-Eleven, where Juanita bought a gas can. At another store, they got a lighter.

Back at the van, Holmes poured gas through the van’s driver’s side window, with Ar’zjon “right next to me.”

“We both threw the (lit) napkins inside” the van, he said.

Holmes “patted out” the fire on Ar’zjon’s chest, they climbed into the car and Carr drove them away, he said. She later called an ambulance. Paramedics met them at a grocery store and took Ar’zjon to the hospital.

Holmes testified in exchange for immunity from prosecution in the case.

Carr has had other run-ins with police. In 2005, she was found guilty of misdemeanor attempted theft, and placed on probation. In 2011, she was found guilty of two misdemeanor child endangerment counts and sentenced to parenting classes, which she completed.

The Department of Family Services has kept tabs on Carr’s family since 1999. In the following 13 years, Family Services had 16 referrals alleging neglect or abuse by Carr, the mother of at least five children.

Three of the reports were substantiated and in January 2012 Carr’s 11-year-old son and other family members were found to be in need of protection services but it is unclear if they were removed from her home. The case was closed Aug. 7, a month before the fire.

Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@review journal.com or 702-380-1039.