Money for Fire Survivor Is Stolen

Sheriff’s investigators asked for help Thursday in their search for suspects in the theft of $1,500 collected for a 9-year-old girl, the only survivor in a fire that killed five children after her father allegedly lighted a charcoal grill inside the family’s Pico Rivera home.

The money was in a 5-gallon jug taken from the counter of Mario’s Tacos Monday night by a man and two women, said Lt. Stephen T. Gattis of the Pico Rivera Sheriff’s Station.

On Thursday, dozens of supporters of Kassandra Garcia showed up at the brown stucco restaurant in the 9200 block of Whittier Boulevard in Pico Rivera to eat and drop a few more dollars into a new jug that was now tied to the counter with a rope.

Among the supporters were Ester Ramirez, 67, and her two sons and three daughters, all of Pico Rivera.

“Mario’s was just trying to help this poor family,” Ramirez said, shaking her head, “and then someone comes in with no heart and snatches all the money away. It’s incredible. It’s terrible.”

Mario’s owner, Celia Jimenez, 59, agreed.

“In my younger days I would have jumped the counter and taken those thieves down myself,” she said.

A few feet away, her husband was taking telephone calls from people promising to send Kassandra checks for as much as $1,000.

In the meantime, Gattis encouraged anyone with information on those responsible to contact authorities.

Gattis said the man and two women had been in the restaurant for more than an hour before the man, described as about 6 feet tall, 180 pounds and 25 years old with a shaved head, grabbed the jug and dashed outside where two women were waiting in a white Honda.

The crime occurred in front of dozens of patrons. It also was caught on a surveillance camera.

“This has just added to the pain the community was already going through,” Gattis said. “The community wants to know: Who would be so mean, so callous, so insensitive to take this money that was going to help a little girl who lost her brothers and sisters?”

Kassandra’s sisters and brothers--Brenda, 10; Jonathan, 7; Anthony, 2; Cecilia, 4; and Vanessa, 6--died.

Their father, Adair Javier Garcia, 30, has been charged with one count each of murder in the Feb. 20 deaths of the children.

The children’s mother, Adriana Ibeth Arreola, had left the house a week before. Police have said Adair Garcia was apparently despondent over marital problems.

Prosecutors have not decided whether to seek the death penalty.