Cecilia E. Casals Dies After Setting Herself Ablaze In Miami’s Mall Of The Americas
19 August 2009, 10:53 AM. By Alex Alvarez
Forty-two-year-old (some sources say 43) Cecilia E. Casals died yesterday after having set herself on fire last week in Miami-Dade’s Mall of the Americas. Casals, a resident of North Miami Beach, doused herself with a flammable liquid last Thursday, set herself aflame in the mall’s “Savage Boutique” and continued walking through the building and out the door. Casal’s eldest daughter, her husband revealed, was an employee at the boutique. The couple also have a four-year-old.
One witness recalls hearing screams and turned to find a pillar of fire. It was later that he realized there was a person within the blaze. Another witness, who hurt his hand obtaining a fire extinguisher, says the scene was like something “from a movie” and that the victim’s clothing had been burnt off.
Casals was air-lifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital suffering from third degree burns, where she eventually died.
This incident is a culmination of Casal’s history of mental illness and violence. In 2004, she was arrested after threatening her then-boyfriend with a knife. The two were driving in Hialeah when she retrieved the weapon from her purse, held it to his throat and said she was going to kill him. She managed to slash his neck, and he was cut several more times trying to defend himself. After he exited the car, she attempted to run him over. Charges were later dropped, however, when the boyfriend “refused to cooperate” with the case.
Her current husband claims she has trafficked drugs and that she had recently been to Jackson Memorial three times to seek psychiatric help. In April 2008, Casals was placed under house arrest and later probation after signing for a shipment containing over $250,000’s worth of prescription drugs.
Pictures from the event show several people staring as Casals made her way through the mall, with several snapping photos as security rushed forward. The reaction seems shocking and callous but, then again, what could these bystanders have done, other than, as one did, attempt to get a fire extinguisher? We’re not sure how we would have reacted or whether our first inclination would have been to whip out a camera phone and snap photos of a woman being consumed by flames.
Casals’ story, along with that of Katherine Nadal and Otty Sanchez, makes it the third of a recent string of cases covered on this site where a woman with a history of mental illness and possible drug abuse has harmed others and/or herself. That Casals set herself on fire at her daughter’s place of work potentially adds the additional link of a mother attempting to harm her child in some way.
Click Below for Images from the Incident
Woman who set herself ablaze in Dade mall dies [Miami Herald]
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OK, more than one person reached for their cell phone first before reaching for a fire extinguisher? Thank You Interweb, you have made every last person into papparazi. Hope I never need help, but if I do someone will capture it on film
I hope TMZ headlines are inscribed onto all of our tombstones someday.
ok, i understand that it seems like the witnesses just didnt give a shit. But if it were me standing there, I wouldnt know what the hell to do- its just so crazy, it probably didnt even seem real. Iyou need to understand that these people were caught really off guard, and that she lit herself on fire and was just walking around real slow- and from what I gathered from the story, she didnt even want help.
Yes. That’s why this:
is in there.
Oh snap…somebody got told!!!
Fire Sale!!!!
You had better stop making me snort inappropriately with your comments.
Yes, I realize that was in the original post, but it still makes you think that if you are on fire, extinguishers wont be what everyone grabs first
Screw that! I would not have reached for my cell phone. I probably would have run straight to the food court, swipe a slice at Sbarro’s and run out to my car.