ORLANDO, Fla. — Seven children were asleep in a Pine Hills house when someone threw two bombs inside early Friday morning. The home is located on Stidham Drive in a neighborhood off Silver Ridge Drive near Pine Hills (see map) .
RAW INTERVIEWS: Son, Mother Talk About Incident
WFTV learned that one was a fire bomb to set the place on fire and the other was a dirty bomb, designed to kill. The dirty bomb was a bottle that had nails in it and a liquid meant to explode. Fortunately, it did not go off.
The Johnson family looked for guidance from above to deal with their near-death experience. Nine people, including seven children, were asleep when two explosive devices were thrown into the house, breaking the sliding back door. Everyone got out of the home in time.
One was a firebomb that ignited around 5:30am.
"The place blazed up. The kids went to running, screaming and hollering," said the victims' grandmother Shelina Breedlove.
The fire started in the dinning room area. A doorway was without doors, and it all happened only feet away from where four children were sleeping. One of them was 10-year-old Jerome Lafortune.
‘It didn't smell like regular fire and smelled like chemicals," Lafortune said.
Orange County Sheriff's deputies brought out the bomb squad to deal with the matter, shutdown Stidham Drive for three hours, and realized they needed reinforcements and called in Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents.
"There were pieces of some things left in the home that led us to believe we should call them in just to make sure whatever it is it was nothing serious," said Jeff Williamson of the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
"It was a beer bottle with gas in it and something he made with nails in it," Shelina Breedlove said.
The dirty bomb didn't explode and was removed safely. No one inside the home was hurt during the ordeal.
"My kids almost died," the mother said.
The Johnsons said it was the mother's ex-boyfriend who did this to them, but at this point investigators aren't releasing any information about a suspect.
The family plans to stay with relatives until they feel safe enough to sleep there again.