MIAMI – A 58-year-old Santeria practitioner stands accused of being so mad at his mother for trashing ceremonial items that he set a fire in their home, a judge said.
Luis Garces, who was born in Colombia and lives in southern Miami-Dade County with his mother, appeared before Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer on Tuesday.
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“He set a fire to a house that could have killed everybody,” Glazer said about his mother and three brothers who were inside the home.
County court records show prosecutors filed a first-degree felony case on Tuesday against Garces for arson.
Inmate records show Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office correctional deputies booked Garces at about 7:50 p.m., on Monday at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
According to the M-DCSO deputies’ arrest report, the conflict started when Garces’s mother woke up at about 2 a.m., on April 1, to a “strange sound” at their home’s back patio in The Hammocks neighborhood.
The mother reported that she saw Garces “hovering over a fire” coming from a cooking pan during a Santeria ritual, so she confronted him about not “starting more fires” and threw away some ceremonial items.
The mother reported ignoring Garces when he became “enraged” and “spent the next two hours destroying” his mother’s property, including “several thousands of collectible coins across the floor.”
As the situation worsened, Garces’s mother reported that she decided to call a son for help.
“A lot of paper was burnt and he barricaded himself in the room,” Glazer said.
Garces’s brother reported he “smelled and saw smoke coming” from a bedroom, “saw that the smoke was rapidly increasing,” and heard Garces inside threatening to “throw fire” at anyone who went inside.
According to the arrest report, Garces’s brother was able to get inside and put out the fire and HCA Florida Kendall Hospital treated Garces for smoke inhalation and a cut to his hand on a piece of glass.
Glazer denied bail bond and issued conditional stay-away orders related to his mother and three brothers.