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Woman Allegedly Sets Bed, Home Ablaze

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A Sacramento woman is behind bars charged with starting a house fire in South Sacramento. The homeowner told CBS13 the woman taunted him before her arrest.

"And I said 'Sandra, you could have killed everyone in the house!'" said Jonathan Word. "She said 'I don't care, I'm going to kill everybody!'"

Word told CBS13 he was on the phone with 911 when his tenant Sandra Johnson threatened him and her fellow roommates. Johnson had lived in the group home on O'Neil Way for four months after Word invited her to stay.

The Sacramento Fire Department got the call around 2:30 Tuesday morning, saying something in the bedroom was on fire.

"Sandra told me she lit the bed on fire!" Word explained.

He described Johnson as high strung yet he never had any issues with her.

"We just wanted to give back to the community," he said.

Melissa Scegog was in the room next to Johnson's and said she seemed upset around midnight.

"She said, 'Oh I'm going to burn them down, I'm going to burn the house down,'" she recounted. "She said, 'Oh, I'm going to burn them down with this blue lighter right here.'"

Scegog went to her room to sleep, thinking Johnson would calm down. But less than two hours later, she was woken up suddenly.

"The smoke alarm started going off and Keisha said 'Girl, you got to get out of the house, there's a fire!'" Scegog said.

Word said the fire spread quickly because of freshly painted walls. Now, Scegog and the other three women have to find new homes temporarily.

"I'm going to take it a day at a time and try to figure out what God's plan is for me," she said.

And while the Word family heads to a hotel, Word said he's still committed to helping those in need.

"Will it stop me from continuing to help women?" he said. "No, it will not, I will rebuild."

Johnson now faces a felony arson charge. She's set to appear before a judge on Thursday afternoon.

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