GBI identifies Monroe fire victims as mother, brother of teen charged with murder

A 16-year-old girl charged with murder and arson in a Monroe County house fire in which her mother and brother died is expected to be extradited back to Georgia by early next week.

Candace Walton, who is being held at the McCracken County Juvenile Detention Center in Kentucky, refused extradition earlier this week. She was also charged with several counts of theft by taking that included her mother’s stolen car.

A sealed arrest order is expected to be issued by the governor as required by state law once the paperwork is completed by sheriff’s investigators.

As long as all goes smoothly, Walton is expected to be transported from Kentucky to the Monroe County jail to be booked later this week or by early next week, said Anna Lewis, public information coordinator for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

Walton is expected to be held at the Macon Regional Youth Detention Center due to her age even though she was charged as an adult, Lewis said.

Walton was located in Kentucky about 12 hours after the 3:30 a.m. fire Thursday left her special-needs brother, 21-year-old Gerald Walton, dead. Tasha Vandiver, 46, the siblings’ mother, was identified as the second victim in the fire by a GBI crime lab, according to a sheriff’s news release issued Tuesday.

Candace Walton was initially thought to have died in the fire but she showed up alive driving her mother’s car, a white 2007 Chevy Malibu, in McCracken County, Kentucky, late Thursday afternoon, Lewis said. A look-out for the car as “stolen or missing” had been issued by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office after the fire.

“Obviously a heart-breaking situation for the family,” Lewis said. “It was definitely a turn of events we were not expecting. It’s just a sad situation all the way around.”

McCracken County sheriff’s deputies and investigators, along with U.S. marshals, had begun surveillance on Interstate-24 for the car after receiving word from a U.S. marshal in Georgia that authorities were looking for the car and that it might pass through McCracken County, according to a Facebook post from the McCracken sheriff’s office.

Walton told authorities that she was headed for Oregon, Monroe County Sheriff Brad Freeman previously told The Telegraph. “We believe she’s got a boyfriend in Oregon,” Freeman said.

The car was eventually found and stopped in the parking lot of a gas station at 2955 John Puryear Drive in Paducah, Kentucky, by a McCracken sheriff’s deputy, the post said.

McCracken sheriff’s investigators got a search warrant and found “evidence” in the car that was turned over to Georgia’s authorities, the post said. The search “located some incriminating things,” Freeman said.

Walton was then questioned by Georgia authorities and later charged with murder and arson in the two deaths, according to the post.

This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 1:08 PM.