Mother held after home fire (Idaho)

Officials say she was high on meth while son played inside with lighter

Taryn Brodwater
Staff writer
August 12, 2006

An Athol woman allegedly high on meth was arrested Thursday after her 4-year-old child set the family's home on fire while playing with a lighter.

Authorities who responded to the home on Goodhope Road said 32-year-old Teryn Ann Sizemore's home was littered with rotten garbage and so cluttered that it was hard to walk, according to police reports.

Her three children, described in sheriff's reports as dirty and smelly, told a Kootenai County sheriff's deputy that they hadn't eaten at all that day and couldn't remember if they were given anything to eat the day before.

The children – ages 4, 5 and 6 – were placed in foster care, and Sizemore was arrested on three felony charges of injury to a child. She was also charged with being under the influence of methamphetamine and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.

Bail was set at $50,000 during her initial court appearance Friday.

Timberlake Fire responded to the family's home at 26412 N. Goodhope Road late Thursday afternoon. Sizemore told them her 4-year-old son had been playing with a lighter in her bedroom and started the fire.


Firefighters called the Sheriff's Department after Sizemore allegedly refused to stay out of the burning home and out of their way as they fought the fire.

According to a deputy's report, she picked up a bottle and threw it at the house and was yelling.

In the report, the deputy wrote that Sizemore "kept moving and swaying, and could not focus on what I was asking her."

The deputy asked Sizemore if she was under the influence of drugs, but Sizemore said she wasn't. A drug recognition expert with the Idaho State Police later did an evaluation and concluded that Sizemore was under the influence of methamphetamine, according to the report.

When asked about the mess in the house, Sizemore said her husband was dead and "that was the best that she could do."

Her daughters told the deputy that their younger brother played with the lighter all the time and was lighting pieces of paper on fire when a bed was ignited.

Sizemore's 6-year-old daughter said the children "don't eat very often because there's no food" and don't bathe often. She said they have to take cold baths when they do because there is no electricity.

According to statements from Sizemore's landlord, he was trying to evict her from the home. He said he had previously called the state Department of Health and Welfare out of concern for the children's welfare.

A neighbor told authorities that her husband almost ran over the children one night because they were in the road after dark.

In a written statement, she described how she once had seen the children eating a smashed watermelon off the road. She said the children told her their mother had told them to go eat it.

As the children's home burned Thursday, the neighbor watched them in her yard.

"The boy told me he lit a fire under his mom's bed, and (his sisters) told him he was dumb for doing it," the neighbor wrote. "I asked him later why he did it, and he said he was cold."

See story at: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/idaho/story.asp?ID=144470