WHO'S NEXT?
Dying mother describes fiery murder-suicide

By JEFFREY M. BARKER AND VANESSA HO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS

BONNEY LAKE -- It was past midnight when Antigone Allen and her three small children got into the Lincoln Towncar with Genaro Remigio Garcia for their last ride.

In back were Christine, who was 2 1/2; Christian, 1 1/2; and Adam, 6 months old. Garcia -- Allen's estranged boyfriend and the father of the three children -- was behind the wheel.


Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
Investigators search the scene of an apparent murder-suicide in a field off Sumner-Buckley Highway East at 258th Avenue East yesterday. Five people were killed.
Allen, 18, and Garcia, 24, who spent much of their roughly three-year relationship yelling at each other, were going to talk things over. Garcia wanted to get back together.

Investigators don't know what the two talked about as they drove east onto the Sumner-Buckley Highway -- a trip that ended in a deadly, flaming crash at 1 a.m. yesterday. But amazingly, Allen survived long enough to tell detectives and family how it happened.

Garcia was snorting cocaine in the car, and the couple began arguing, Allen told her sister, LaVeda Allen, before she died hours later at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Allen demanded that Garcia drive her home. Instead, he continued driving and stopped at a gas station. Allen was sleeping and didn't immediately notice that he had filled a can with gasoline and placed it in the back seat.

As he drove, he grabbed the can and began dousing the children and his girlfriend. He pulled out a lighter and pressed on the plastic lever.

Burning, the Towncar sped off the road and into a ditch, flipping onto its roof.


Allen
"She tried to save the kids, but they were in their car seats and their seat belts," LaVeda Allen said.

Allen ran from the car, through waist-high grass, on fire.

Garcia, also aflame, ran after her, shooting at her with a handgun.

Lisa Hansen, who lives nearby and heard the crash, drove down the road to see if she could help. She heard a voice in the pasture screaming: "Help! Help! Help me, please!"

She saw a woman standing, with her shirt burned off, but could not get to her because an electrified horse fence was between them. According to Hansen, the woman was screaming in pain, saying, "He did it! He did this on purpose!"

Other witnesses said Allen screamed, "My kids! My kids!" and repeatedly said, "I'm sorry," following the crash.

Deputies found the gun near where Garcia fell and died, about 50 yards from the car. Allen ran about 100 yards before she collapsed.

The three children died in the car, which exploded as the first sheriff's deputy on the scene tried to approach it.

Even though she knew the couple to fight constantly, Bobbi Fears was speechless yesterday when she heard what had happened to her neighbors. They lived beneath her in a four-unit apartment building in Puyallup's South Hill.

"They were always mad at each other," Fears said yesterday, adding that she and her husband could often hear Allen and Garcia arguing about "stupid things."

One day about two months ago, Fears noticed a trail of blood coming from the couple's front door. Allen had gotten mad at Garcia and punched her fist through a window, Fears said.

She remembered other things about the neighbors she lived near for six months.


Garcia
Once, while talking about Fears' pregnancy, Allen showed pictures of her daughter.

"Her eyes just lit up," Fears remembered. "I had never seen her talk about her children that way. There was obvious joy in her."

Allen stayed at home most of the time, using the telephones of the other three people in the building. Garcia worked long hours. He had his own truck and tools for his job.

Yesterday afternoon, Allen's blue Ford Taurus sat in the driveway at the apartment building. Children's toys, including kid-sized cars and a playhouse, sat in the back yard.

The door jamb of the entrance to Apartment 2 was splintered, a reminder of another of many domestic arguments that a neighbor said took place there.

The most recent was June 15, after which Garcia was arrested on suspicion of fourth-degree domestic violence assault.

During an argument that day, Allen called 911. Deputies came, asked a few questions and left. But the argument escalated. Deputies returned and arrested Garcia.

After Garcia was taken away, Allen called someone on the phone, yelling, "I've got a gun. You better come pick me up before I go off on everybody," Fears recalled.

That was the last Fears saw of Garcia. She saw Allen and her children for the last time July 6. They spoke only briefly.

Allen had been served an eviction notice because she hadn't been paying rent, according to apartment manager Dick Johnson.

When she was 16, Allen gave birth to her first child and enrolled in the teen parent program at GATES alternative high school in Tacoma. Teacher Shirley Berg remembered Allen as a quiet girl who had a tough time attending class.

"She was just there a couple of months, and bless her heart, she was not into being at school, but she did enroll," said Berg, who knew Allen as "Mona." She said Allen didn't socialize much with the other girls and appeared to live off and on with her mother.

She was staying with her mother again yesterday when Garcia came to visit, said Pierce County Sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer.

Both Garcia and Allen were taken to Harborview. Garcia was pronounced dead when he arrived. Allen hung on to say goodbye to her loved ones and make funeral arrangements for herself and her children.

"She said she was ready to go, so she could be with her kids. She wanted to say goodbye to all of us first," LaVeda Allen said. "She kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' She was sorry that we had to go through burying her, and having to put the family through this."

She said her sister had met Garcia in a grocery store, when she was almost 15. She became pregnant soon after, as her life echoed the paths of LaVeda and her mother, who were also teenage mothers.

"She was the best mom. She took damn good care of her kids, with what she had," LaVeda said. She said the oldest son was "a mama's boy," her daughter was "lovable" and her youngest liked to be bounced. She said Garcia was also a good parent.

"He was a good person. He loved her. He was good to his kids," she said, adding that he must have "lost it" when he killed himself and his family. "He didn't want his kids cared for by another man," she said.

She said Garcia was an illegal immigrant and a roofing contractor who provided for his family so that they didn't receive public aid. But he had been controlling in his relationship, forbidding Allen to use the phone or drive the car to contact her family, LaVeda said. She said she never saw him physically abuse his family, but acknowledged she might not have known if he did.

"We, as a family, never, ever, ever thought he would have the potential in any way shape or form to kill her," she said.

She said there are two funds for anyone who wishes to make a donation. The first, the Allen Memorial Fund, through U.S. Bank, is to help bury Allen and her children.

The second, the Allen Family Fund, through Columbia Bank, is to bury Garcia