Early-morning blaze destroys only vehicle of Theodosia couple raising five children
When the 17-year-old mini-van owned by Krista Cofer and her fiance Justin Ledbetter broke down a couple of weeks ago, Justin spent 16 hours trying to fix it. He pulled it up close to the couple’s Theodosia home so it could be plugged into a battery charger. On Dec. 1, that connection is believed to have started a fire that destroyed the vehicle – and might have destroyed their home if passers-by hadn’t noticed the 3 a.m. fire and rushed to wake them.
Krista Cofer, right, holding her 5-month-old son Kylan Ledbetter, and her fiance Justin Ledbetter, left, holding 2-year-old Kaisley McCullough, with the other children in their blended family: Logan Ledbetter, 15, standing, center; Keith McCullough, 4, front left; and Kylie McCullough, 6. The children’s carseats were destroyed in the fire that totaled their family’s only vehicle.
Richard and Mareshah Taber enjoyed playing cards and visiting with friends at their lakehouse near Lost Woods Golf Course in Theodosia late Friday night, Nov. 30. If that Friday had been like “99 percent” of the many evenings they’ve enjoyed at their lakehouse, Mareshah Taber said, they would have spent the night there.
If they had done that, a few miles away across Bull Shoals Lake, a family’s home might have burned down.
“We had stuff to do at our house the next day, so we went home instead of spending the night at the lakehouse,” Richard told the Times Sunday. In the early hours of Saturday, Dec. 1, they headed home to their house on the other side of Theodosia. The Tabers and their friends drove west on Highway 160 in three vehicles. A friend from St. Louis was driving the car ahead of them. Just as the Tabers were passing Sparky Lane, they saw that the friend driving ahead of them was turning around.
“She turned around, and we met her and saw the fire kind of all at the same time. We all knew something was wrong,” Richard said.
The bright flames the friends saw were coming from a car parked in a lean-to adjoining the back of the home of Krista Cofer and her fiance, Justin Ledbetter.
Inside the built-onto mobile home, Cofer, Ledbetter and their 5-month-old baby Kylan slept soundly.
“The fire was starting to catch the posts of the lean-to on fire,” Taber said. He and Jerry Donley, one of the friends accompanying the Tabers, started beating on the door of the home. But Cofer and Ledbetter didn’t hear them.
The two men pounded on the door for several minutes with no results. They were just about to break a kitchen window to get in when, finally, Cofer heard them and woke up her fiance.
“We went to the door, and they were yelling, ‘Get everyone out! The car is on fire!’” Cofer said last week. “The fire was just minutes from getting into the house. I grabbed the baby, and we all ran outside and waited for the fire department.”
The men grabbed a garden hose and turned it on the fire. The call came into the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office at 3:11 a.m. that Dec. 1 morning. Theodosia Area Volunteer Fire Department was dispatched, with Pontiac / Price Place VFD responding in mutual aid, and the blaze was quickly extinguished, leaving the back wall of the home scorched and the couple’s 2001 Pontiac Montana mini-van totaled.
The fire was another hard blow for the couple, who are raising a blended family of five children. (The four older kids – ranging in age from 2 to 15 – were staying with other family members that night.) The 17-year-old mini-van “was our only form of transportation,” Cofer said Thursday.
The car had broken down the previous week, and Justin “had spent 16 hours working on it, replacing gaskets,” she said. “We had stayed up all night the night before working on it.”
Justin had pulled the car into the lean-to, close to the house, so it could be plugged into a battery charger, she said. Apparently that electrical connection is where the fire started. “We definitely learned our lesson about that,” she said.
Their problems are compounded because Justin was recently laid off, and Krista’s seasonal employment has ended. “So we’re out of work and don’t have a vehicle to use to look for jobs,” she said, adding, “and, you know, the holiday and the kids ...”
Also, their children’s carseats, in the car, were destroyed in the fire.
Their families are helping them get around for now, Krista said, and friends and acquaintances have helped in other ways. She’s talked with the Ozark County Health Department about available assistance, including the possibility of replacing the carseats. Still, the setbacks they’ve endured seem overwhelming at times; her feelings range from boundless gratitude to bottomless despair.
“Most of all, our family wants to personally thank the ones who woke us up and kept the fire from spreading,” she said, knowing that the passers-by who pounded on their door that night saved their home – and may have saved their lives as well. She also thanked the fire department volunteers who responded and endured their own challenging conditions. Three of the firetrucks had to be towed when they got stuck in the mud, she said.
And she expressed thanks to the people who have reached out to them in this difficult time. Others who wish to help can contact Krista Cofer at 417-372-1869 or at 17 Sparky Lane, Theodosia, MO 65761.