{"id":216720,"date":"2026-04-02T22:57:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216720\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:57:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:57:34","slug":"teen-charged-with-murder-in-deadly-st-petersburg-fire-father-also-arrested-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216720\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen charged with murder in deadly St. Petersburg fire; father also arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A teenager is facing murder charges after police say he set a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/st-pete-fire-killed-18-183843040.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:fire that killed an 18-year-old woman;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;fire that killed an 18-year-old woman&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fire that killed an 18-year-old woman<\/a> and seriously injured her sister inside a St. Petersburg home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Charles Chambliss III, 18, appeared in court Thursday on one count of felony murder and three counts of attempted felony murder. A judge ordered him held without bond. He is expected back in court Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The charges stem from a fire that broke out just after 3:30 a.m. March 22 at a home on Neptune Drive Southeast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIn the early morning hours of March 22, St. Pete Police Department and St. Pete Fire Rescue responded to 3963 Neptune Drive Southeast related to a structure fire,\u201d said Assistant Chief Michael Kovacsev with St. Petersburg Police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Investigators determined the fire started outside the home and spread.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Four family members were inside at the time. Eighteen-year-old Angelina Anderson later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/st-pete-fire-killed-18-183843040.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:died from her injuries;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;died from her injuries&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">died from her injuries<\/a>. Her 35-year-old sister was seriously burned and remains hospitalized, while two children, a 17-year-old and an 11-year-old, were not seriously hurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police say surveillance video from nearby homes played a critical role in identifying a suspect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThey relied heavily on this video surveillance from residential cameras, and one of the key points was they were able to obtain a video of a suspect approaching the residence and that shortly leaving afterwards when the fire started,\u201d Kovacsev said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Investigators say the person seen in the video was wearing dark clothing with a distinctive marking, which helped them narrow their focus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As detectives closed in, they began monitoring the suspect\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe father left [the house], went to a local business, went to the dumpster and discarded clothing that was similar to the distinctive sweatshirt that the suspect was wearing that evening,\u201d Kovacsev said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Chambliss\u2019 father, Charles Chambliss Jr., was later arrested and charged with tampering with evidence. During his interview, police say he incriminated himself and his son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A warrant for Charles Chambliss III was issued Monday and he turned himself in on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police say the suspect knew the family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Best we can tell the 17-year-old who lived at the residence had known him [Chambliss III] since he was in grade school,&#8221; Kovacsev said. &#8220;He had been at that residence earlier that day. He\u2019d been over there numerous times in the past, but the issue is there might have been some type of disagreement; we don\u2019t know what caused him to go out at 3:30 in the morning to go do this. And we may never know.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Kovacsev says Chambliss III has prior felony convictions stemming from property crimes committed while he was a minor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Authorities say the 35-year-old woman who was injured remains in stable condition but faces a long recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Chambliss will be back in court on Monday, April 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenager is facing murder charges after police say he set a fire that killed an 18-year-old woman&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[98718,98719,79141,67350,202,204,203,199,201,200,23789],"class_list":{"0":"post-216720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-charles-chambliss-iii","9":"tag-chief-michael-kovacsev","10":"tag-felony-murder","11":"tag-pinellas-county-sheriff39s-office","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news","18":"tag-structure-fire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}