Photo: Monroe County Sheriff’s Office
A 16-year-old Georgia girl authorities initially thought died in a house fire is now accused of setting the blaze that police believe killed her brother and mother.
On Thursday, Candace Walton, 16, of Monroe County, was arrested in Kentucky after she allegedly stole her mother’s car and fled her home after the fire, Monroe County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Anna Lewis tells PEOPLE.
She was scheduled to appear in court in Kentucky Monday morning for extradition, Lewis says.
On Thursday at about 3:30 a.m., sheriff’s deputies and EMTs raced to a home on Old Zebulon Road where a raging fire had fully engulfed the house, which firefighters fought to extinguish, the sheriff’s department says in a statement.
After the fire, investigators found two burned bodies inside the home.
Initially, it was believed that Walton and her brother, Gerald Walton, 21, died in the fire,The Telegraphof Macon reports.
After the fire, authorities were unable to locate their mother, Tasha Vandiver, 46.
At about 4 p.m. on Thursday, the McCraken County Sheriff’s Office near Paducah in western Kentucky located the car, and Walton was alive inside of it, the statement says.
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Two investigators from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office traveled to McCracken County to speak with Walton.
Walton, who attends Mary Persons High School, told officers that she was bound for Oregon, Monroe Sheriff Brad Freeman toldThe Telegraph.
“We believe she’s got a boyfriend in Oregon,” he told the paper.
Officers searched the car and allegedly “located some incriminating things,” Freeman said.
Walton remains held in Kentucky awaiting extradition back to Georgia.
She has not entered a plea. It is unclear whether she has retained an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
source: people.com
