Three women died after a fire tore through a Bloomington-area house where two residents needed daily care.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The house on East Anderson Road was a place where care shaped daily life before police say a relative set it on fire, killing three women and leaving an 18-year-old survivor with serious burns.
Mary Blake, 74, was living with cancer. Kristine Rowan, 33, lived with cerebral palsy and was bedridden. Paula Anderson, 53, was a certified nursing assistant who cared for both women while also caring for her own family. Those roles now sit at the center of a Monroe County murder case against Braydon Richard Blake, 28, Mary Blake’s grandson, who is accused of starting the Jan. 18 fire that destroyed the home.
Investigators say the fire broke out shortly after 2:40 a.m. at a home in the 3800 block of East Anderson Road, outside Bloomington. The first calls to 911 reported a house fire with people trapped inside. When deputies and firefighters arrived, they saw that a vehicle had crashed into an attached garage, which was burning. The rest of the house was also on fire. Gabriella Anderson, 18, had escaped with severe burns. Another person escaped and later died after weeks of treatment. Fire crews entered the home and found Mary Blake and Rowan inside.
Rowan was pronounced dead at the scene. Mary Blake was taken to IU Health Bloomington Hospital and died there. Paula Anderson, who was Rowan’s mother and Mary Blake’s live-in caregiver, was badly burned and transferred to Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis. She died Feb. 4. Gabriella Anderson, Paula Anderson’s younger daughter, survived and was treated at the same Indianapolis hospital. Family members have said Gabriella’s recovery is ongoing. The deaths of Mary Blake and Rowan were ruled homicides after a forensic pathologist found they died from thermal injuries and inhalation of products of combustion.
The charging documents described by local news accounts gave investigators a picture of panic inside the home before fire crews arrived. A probable cause affidavit says dispatchers received a call from a phone linked to one of the victims, and a woman could be heard saying someone was pouring gasoline around the house. Another woman told dispatchers the house was on fire and said one victim had named Braydon Blake. The affidavit says a badly burned victim later told EMS workers that “Blake” poured gasoline on them and lit them on fire. Investigators also reported finding a plastic can near the dining area with liquid that smelled like gasoline.
The case carries an added layer because the people inside the house were not equally able to flee. Rowan was bedridden, according to family and news accounts. Mary Blake was ill. Anderson was the caregiver in the home, and family members said she and Gabriella Anderson tried to help others as the fire spread. A neighbor later told a Bloomington news outlet that Paula Anderson, even while gravely burned, told people where others were in the house and called out for Gabriella. “Paula was brave that night,” the neighbor said, describing her as focused on the people still inside.
Police found Braydon Blake about an hour after the fire began, not inside the home but in a wooded area on the same property. Investigators used a tracking dog and drone during the search, according to the affidavit. Blake was about 250 yards behind the house and had significant burn injuries. He was taken first to IU Health Bloomington Hospital, then to Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis. The sheriff’s office said deputies guarded him there for about a month while he received treatment, then withdrew after hospital staff moved him to an area where deputies could no longer maintain direct visual security and agreed to notify them when he was released.
That agreement later became part of the public record after Blake left the hospital without being arrested. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said Eskenazi released him April 1 without notifying deputies. The sheriff’s office said it learned April 9 that Blake was no longer at the hospital and began searching for him. With help from Indiana State Police and the U.S. Marshals Service, deputies found Blake in Avon on April 10. He was booked into the Monroe County Jail that evening. The hospital declined public comment to at least one news station. The lapse has raised questions about how law enforcement and medical facilities handle injured suspects with pending warrants.
The criminal case changed again after all three deaths were folded into the court file. At Blake’s April 13 initial hearing, the prosecutor moved to amend the charges to three counts of murder, three counts of felony murder and one count of arson resulting in serious bodily injury. The prosecutor also filed notice seeking life without parole. The judge ordered Blake held without bond and appointed a state-paid attorney. His next court date is set for May 20, and a jury trial is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 26. Blake has not been convicted, and the allegations must be proven in court.
Local reports also have noted Blake’s earlier criminal history. Court records cited by The Herald-Times show that he was sentenced in 2018 in a burglary case, received a drug court placement that could have led to dismissal if completed, then was removed from the program after violations. He later entered re-entry court in 2022 but was terminated from that program in 2023 and ordered back to prison to finish his burglary sentence. State prison records cited in those reports said he was released in summer 2024. A November 2025 traffic citation listed the East Anderson Road address as his address.
For relatives, the legal file tells only part of the story. Lindsey Pesonen, Anderson’s sister, wrote in a fundraiser that Rowan had lived with cerebral palsy and was bedridden. She said the fire took Mary Blake and her niece Kristine, and that the family lost possessions along with people they loved. Her note also said Gabriella Anderson suffered serious burns. The family descriptions place Anderson not only as a victim, but as a mother, sister and caregiver whose work connected the people in the home. That family account has become one of the few public windows into the lives disrupted by the fire.
Officials have said the investigation included the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, Monroe County Fire Protection District, Indiana State Fire Marshal’s Office, Monroe County Coroner’s Office, Bloomington police, Indiana State Police and federal marshals. Each agency had a different role, from fire response to death investigation to arrest. The court case now turns on forensic evidence, survivor statements, 911 records, witness accounts and the items investigators recovered from the burned home. Questions about motive remain publicly unresolved, though police records described an alleged sexual threat and assault claim tied to the fire.
As of May 5, Blake remained jailed without bond in Monroe County. The case’s next scheduled step is the May 20 hearing, when the court is expected to continue setting the path toward the tentative Sept. 26 trial.
Author note: Last updated May 5, 2026.