Hempstead mother accused of setting fire

A Hempstead woman was arrested and arraigned at her hospital bedside Wednesday on charges she intentionally set a fire in her kitchen earlier this month that badly burned her and her infant daughter, police said.

Natashia Reed was charged at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow with arson, assault and reckless endangerment charges, all felonies, in connection with the April 13 fire on the second floor of the cape-style, wood-framed home on Edgewood Court, Nassau police said.

Information about her plea bail, if any, was not available.

Reed, 25, and her 4-month-old daughter each sustained second-degree burns over 7 percent of their bodies. The daughter, Celeste, was released from the hospital four days after the fire, but Reed remains there, authorities said. The other child who was inside home at the time of the fire, a 4-year-old boy, was unhurt, police said.

Asked whether Reed meant to hurt herself or her children by starting the fire, one of the police supervisors on the case, Det. Sgt. Robert Matedero of the Special Victims Section said, "We have information that that is the case."

Matedero declined to elaborate and didn't offer a motive.

Police began building an arson case against Reed after "a very alert child protective service investigator" received "some information that he passed along to us and that assisted us tremendously," Matedero said. Matedero didn't say what that information was.

The children are in the care of other family members, he said.

The fire took about 15 minutes to extinguish, authorities said at the time. Reed's son and other relatives home at the time, ages 72 and 73, were treated for smoke inhalation.

"Initially she stated to us that a fire happened in the kitchen, which occurred accidentally," Matedero said. "That was her initial story -- an accidental fire."