Mother’s Last Thoughts Were to Save Son

People who knew Diana Olivas don’t know exactly what happened in her last minutes on Earth, but they do know she was by the side of her 12-year-old disabled son Anthony Jr.--or at least trying to get there.

She was too late.

The heavyset boy with leg braces and the mother whom friends described as being devoted to his care died in a predawn fire Monday in their Norwalk home. Olivas’ husband was burned as he fought the flames in a vain attempt to get up the stairs of his two-story home. Anthony’s grandmother and grandfather, who lived with the family, were also hospitalized.

Authorities have determined that the blaze was deliberately set and were investigating the fire as a homicide. One neighbor said Olivas’ husband told her he had heard glass breaking and what sounded like something being thrown through a window before the home was engulfed in flames.

A Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said investigators found evidence in the living room of a substance used to start the 3:40 a.m. blaze that roared through the two-story stucco house at Belcher Street and Gridley Road in the neat residential neighborhood.

Fire officials said the fire burned the stairs that could have brought the 37-year-old mother and son to safety, trapping them and preventing anyone from helping them.

Anthony Jr., who suffered from a host of congenital diseases and sometimes had to use a wheelchair, may have been difficult to move, a family member suggested.

Anthony Olivas Sr., 37, was hospitalized with second- and third-degree burns on his extremities. Diana Olivas’ parents, Leonore and Alfred Savedra, were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.

Reed said investigators, who are trying to determine whether someone had a grudge against the family, will follow a lead involving a male relative who moved out of the house nine months ago.

“We have information supplied that [he] had some local problems when he lived here that had to do with his lifestyle as a gang member,” Reed said. He would not elaborate, and emphasized that no link had been established.

Some neighbors said they heard sounds that they thought were gunshots and glass breaking before they came out and saw the fire.

Reed declined to comment on any statements made by witnesses, although he acknowledged that there had been unsubstantiated speculation by some neighbors about Molotov cocktails being thrown.

He said authorities were alerted to the blaze by a 911 call that came from inside the house. It took firefighters 35 minutes to put out the fire.

Daylight Monday showed most of the house to be gutted. Eleven hours after the fire was extinguished, several county and state arson investigators were still at the scene and calling for additional investigators, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Melissa Savedra, who was once married to a brother of the dead woman and lives down the street, said Anthony Olivas Sr. described the incident to her as he lay in an ambulance and said that he had heard glass breaking.

He had been upstairs with his wife and son when he heard the glass break and came downstairs to find flames, Savedra said.

He was able to get his in-laws out a back window on the first floor, where they slept, with the help of police, she said. But he could not reach his wife and son, even after several attempts to get up the burning stairs.

“The neighbors said the first time he came out he was burned on his legs,” Savedra said. “When he came out again, he was burned all over.”

Savedra said she is certain Diana Olivas was trying to rescue her son before they were trapped.

“She wouldn’t have left him and she didn’t,” Savedra said as she watched arson investigators go through the burned house with a dog trained to search for signs of arson.

“I know she wouldn’t leave him. She died with her son.”