Update on South Boston House Fire

Local newspapers have provided more background about 14-year-old Acia Johnson and her 3-year-old sister, Sophia, who perished in a house fire in South Boston over the weekend. Investigators have discovered that the girls' mother, Anna Reisopoulos, fought with an acquaintance at a wedding beforehand, and they suspect arson. They are already interviewing a suspect.

Acia's twin brother, according to the Herald, heard someone banging on the door and a woman's screaming before the fire started.

Even sadder, the family had been the focus of Department of Social Services in the past, and police had been called to the home before. Donovan Slack and John Ellement at the Globe sum up the family file: "Those documents are filled with descriptions of Reisopoulos getting kicked in the teeth, pulling another woman's hair, scratching a woman, threatening a teenage boy, and adults spitting in each other's faces." In another incident outside the house, Reisopoulos allegedly threatened a 14-year-old boy in 2007: "She called him a 'white trash cracker,' spit in his face, and threatened to return with a knife and 'cut the victim's [genitals] off.'"

None of this stopped Acia from being active in her school. She was co-captain of her middle school basketball team, and a friend of hers described her as a "teacher's pet."

[Boston Herald on the girls, Boston Herald on the fight, Boston Globe]

All charges alleged until proven under law. Photo by Paul Keleher from photos tagged "Bostonist" on Flickr.