In the very early hours of Feb 5th 27 year old Roberta Dos Santos Busby, an exotic dancer in a Tarzana club, was set  on fire by 28 year old Rianne Celine Theriault-Odom. The two women, who had never met before that night, were apparently in some sort of fight earlier in the evening. Roberta then counted her tips and came out of the club around 1:30am. At that point Rianne and a male accomplice doused her with a soda bottle full of gasolline and set her on fire seemingly without thought.

Busby had applied to work at the Babes and Beer Club, where the assault occurred, earlier that week and had been rejected.

Witnesses described Odum as a ‘Human fireball’ when she ran inside and her coworkers and customers worked to put the fire out as fast as possible. She was taken to the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks.

Theriault-Odom, who has two children, needed approximately 30 skin graft operations. She is alive but severely scarred over 40% of her body and is reported to be in grave condition.

Jurors deliberated after the trial for two full days before acquitting Busby of both the attempted murder and attempted voluntary manslaughter and instead convicted her of aggravated mayhem and torture.

Criminal Defense Attorney Robert M. Helfend has seen even better outcomes than this in his cases. In his case histories are many files where charges were completely dropped. When a client was accused of killing a police officer, Mr. Helfend proved that the identification by the officer was flawed and the client was set free on time served. In another case where a man was accused of killing his unborn son, Robert Helfend convinced the court to drop the charges and once again the client was set free.

Don’t hesitate to contact Robert M. Helfend should you or anyone you know find yourselves in a situation like this.

Photo credit – Firegeezer.com