Sarasota woman sentenced to 12 years in prison for 2022 Palmadelia Avenue housefire
A Sarasota woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation in connection to setting a house on fire with three women and 1-year-old twins inside in December 2022.
Andrea Allen, 37, was arrested in 2023 and faced five counts of attempted murder. According to previous Sarasota Herald-Tribune reporting, the victims included 1-year-old twins, two 35-year-old women, and a 47-year-old woman. Officials said Allen had previously threatened to burn the house down on six separate occasions.
Court records indicate Allen took a plea the week she was set to stand trial for the charges. Allen pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder in the second degree and arson. The assistant state attorney in the case did not prosecute the other three counts of attempted murder, according to the court document.
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She was adjudicated for all three counts, and along with the prison sentence and probation, she was sentenced to receive a mental health evaluation and any treatment deemed necessary, according to court records. The judge also ruled that her probation could be transferred to Dade County or the state of Massachusetts.
The Sarasota County Fire Department responded to a house fire on Palmadelia Avenue in Sarasota on Dec. 31 right before 8:30 a.m., according to previous reporting. Allen and one of the victims, a 35-year-old woman, were taken to Blake Medical Center's burn unit.
SPD investigators claimed Allen left the home at 11 p.m. on Dec. 30 following an argument with two women over cheating allegations. Allen then came back to the house at 2 a.m. on Dec. 31 and demanded one of the women leave. She walked outside during the argument, grabbed a gas can, and came back inside with the can and a lighter in her other hand, according to previous reporting.
Police officials wrote in the report that Allen said, “You think I’m playing? Get out.”
Detectives found a lighter and clothing covered in accelerant fluid in a search warrant and found Allen had purchased the gas can a month before the incident.
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Victim of Palmadelia Avenue housefire details 'heartbreaking' loss
A "forever home" built through blood, sweat and tears destroyed by flames and water damage.
A family whose memories and precious mementos of those no longer with them turned to ash.
A woman with diabetes was forced to leave the city she grew up in to live with relatives in a city foreign to her and causing her great medical suffering.
Those are just some of the main points one of the victims of the housefire mentioned in her letter to the court asking a Sarasota judge to hold Allen accountable.
"To see my house up in flames was heartbreaking and all I could think of was my mother," the victim wrote in her letter. "I have lost all of the obituaries I had of my grandmother, my dad, my mom, aunts, and uncles and my baby brother, and I can never get back those memories, other than the ones that are in my heart."
The victim detailed how she had opened her home to Allen while she was trying to get back on her feet, and that due to Allen's criminal actions, the victim and her family lost thousands of dollars and precious memories from a home she had grown up in for 30 years.
While the victim was already being forced to sell the house, which had been put on the market for $180,000, she said the silver lining was that the money would help her find a place to live to accommodate her being wheelchair-bound because of her diabetes. Because of the fire, the house was sold for a fraction of the original listing, the letter stated.
However, more than the loss of the house, the most painful loss was that of irreplaceable items like family photographs, the victim's mother's house gowns which held "immeasurable sentimental value" to her and furniture that had been passed down for generations.
While the victim said she was appreciative of Allen for getting her out of the burning house, she urged the judge to hold Allen accountable for her actions.
"A person who premeditatedly decides to set fire to someone else's house, risking the lives of innocent people, does not deserve pity or a lighter sentence, and I would not want to see this happen to anyone else," the victim concluded.
Gabriela Szymanowska covers the legal system for the Herald-Tribune in partnership with Report for America. You can support her work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America. Contact Gabriela Szymanowska at gszymanowska@gannett.com, or on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota woman sentenced to prison for burning home after argument
