No Bail in Fire-Death Case : Victim: The mortally burned woman’s dying thoughts were of her children and her husband’s faith, says pastor who was at her bedside.

As she lay dying in a hospital bed with third-degree burns covering nearly all of her body, Karen LaBorde’s last thoughts were about her husband and her children.

LaBorde, who was doused with gasoline and set on fire Tuesday morning, knew that time was running out. Doctors at UCI Medical Center had told her there was little they could do to save her life.

“Her concern right from that moment, and she communicated it this way, was, ‘I have real peace about Christ accepting me and where I’m going,’ ” LaBorde’s friend and pastor, Rick Hann, who was at her bedside, said Thursday.

“ ‘My concern is for my husband. We’ve been praying that he would accept Christ.’ ”

Despite her agony, the 41-year-old bookkeeper and Orange resident displayed such courageous strength that it stunned UCI Medical Center’s chaplain, Jon Wetterholm.

During the several hours she lay in intensive care, LaBorde, her husband, Jerry, and Hann prayed and sang songs together. She told the pastor that if dying would bring her husband “to Christ, it would be worth it all.”

“Kari hung on in consciousness long enough for me to get there to make a decision for Christ,” her husband said.

She was very clear about not wanting any heroic efforts to prolong her life, Hann said.

Her concern then turned to her children. She asked her church’s youth pastor to visit her children, Renee, 15, and Chris, 17, at school and inform them of her condition.

According to a statement by LaBorde’s Evangelical Free Church of Orange, LaBorde didn’t want her children to see her in the hospital.

Chris, the older, recalled how “Mom was good with my friends.” If any of Chris’ friends had a problem, “they could talk to her.”

At her church, LaBorde was remembered as a good mother, a person who was “open, friendly, caring and real,” said her friend, Debbie Hayes.

“She lived each day to the fullest, like it was her last,” said another friend, Eva Johnson.

Thursday night, as friends and family members visited his tiny apartment, Jerry LaBorde talked of how his wife would have forgiven Jonathan Daniel D’Arcy, the man accused of killing her.

“Kari had a lot of love for people and a lot of faith in God,” he said. “She held no bad feelings toward anyone.”

Nor does he and his family have any ill will toward the man who would forever change their lives, Jerry LaBorde added. “That’s what she would’ve wanted--for us to pray for him and for us to be at peace with ourselves.”

Two funds have been established at the church. One is the Youth Support Group Ministry, which was established because it was LaBorde’s dream to help teen-agers. Hanson said a second fund, the Kari LaBorde Family Fund, was created to help the family. Jerry LaBorde, a computer systems operator, was laid off in November.

A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at the Evangelical Free Church of Orange, 1350 E. Taft Ave. For more information, contact the church at (714) 637-3220.

Times staff writer Lily Dizon contributed to this story.