{"id":300934,"date":"2026-06-09T04:32:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/300934\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T04:32:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:32:25","slug":"driver-of-stolen-car-crashes-into-st-pete-home-causes-fire-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/300934\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver of stolen car crashes into St. Pete home, causes fire, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sandra Henderson woke up early Monday morning to her husband telling her the house was on fire and there was a car in the living room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cOh my God, I panicked,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had to break the back gate to get the door open so we could get out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">St. Petersburg police say a person stole a Honda Accord and crashed it into the Hendersons\u2019 home on 14th Avenue South at about 3 a.m. The car thief, who fled the scene, has not yet been identified by police. But on Monday afternoon, police released a video of the suspect walking away from the scene and asked for the public\u2019s help in identifying him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Henderson, 56, said she and her husband did not see anybody after the crash, but their neighbor\u2019s Ring doorbell camera captured the incident, and police are reviewing the footage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIt was like a bomb dropped,\u201d Abbott Henderson said. \u201cI got up and said, \u2018We\u2019ve got to get the hell out of here \u2014 the house is on fire.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f7c1e8fb5df846dcb6846e72bd2d90a9.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police believe the Honda Accord was stolen sometime overnight from the 2100 block of Ninth Avenue South.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sandra and Abbott Henderson are the sole occupants of the home, and they were able to get out safely. The home, however, \u201csustained significant structural damage,\u201d the police department said in a news release. On Monday, photos showed a large part of the home without walls and windows, which were destroyed.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/25c62b67288f41209e1632a8e601de85.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Abbott Henderson has lived in the home for 35 years, his wife said. They stood outside the house Monday morning trying to clear some of the debris.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get it together and at least patch it up until we get the money to get it fixed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Times photojournalist Dirk Shadd contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandra Henderson woke up early Monday morning to her husband telling her the house was on fire and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[104608,126404,126403,1599,126275,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-300934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-14th-avenue","tag-abbott-henderson","tag-dirk-shadd","tag-police-department","tag-sandra-henderson","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300934","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=300934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}