Roberta Dos Santos Busby, a Brazilian-born exotic dancer, gets too choked up with emotion and can’t finish the thought: That people now stare at her because of the extensive scar tissue from burns on her face, neck and arms.
“My life,” Busby said, “will never be the same.”
In an interview after a guilty verdict was read against the woman who doused Busby with gasoline and set her on fire, the single mother from Simi Valley talked about how her life was forever changed by the Feb. 5, 2009, attack.
After over more than 40 skin-graft operations, and Busby said the trial helped her emotionally close the door on what hardened detectives call one of the most vicious attacks they have ever seen.
“But it wasn’t the verdict that helped me put closure on it,” said Busby, who suffered second-and third-degree burns over 40 percent of her body. “It was testifying. It was walking into the courtroom, steeling myself just to get through it, and sitting and testifying about what I could.
“I stole a glance at her, from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t turn to look at her. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of making eye contact.”
The ‘she’ is Rianne Theriault-Odom, 28, of Tarzana, who was convicted of one count each of aggravated mayhem and torture and is serving a life sentence. She was found not guilty of the top count, attempted murder. Busby said she wishes the jury had convicted on all the counts, but that she is content to know that Theriault-Odom — a woman she didn’t know before that ill-fated night — would be severely punished.
“I have to be at peace with myself,” Busby said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not the one who has to deal with going to prison for the rest of my life.
“I have to look at myself, but she’s the one who has to really suffer.”
Prosecutor Marcus Musante, with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, said the case had perhaps been the most trying of his career.
“It was exhausting for everyone — the prosecution, the defense, the jury, the judge — but especially for Roberta,” said Musante, who called Busby’s dramatic courtroom appearance a cathartic moment for the victim.
“She had not been out much in public and to make an appearance in a trial like this had to have an effect on her. We tried to prepare her and told her that from the moment she stepped into the courtroom, all eyes — the jury, the judge, the people in the courtroom — would be on her.
“She was fine until she stepped inside, then you could see she was tearing up, but she got it all together and walked in and held her poise.”
Daisy Busby and Miriam Dos Santos, Roberta’s mother and aunt, said they had no doubt that she would be able to take the witness stand knowing that all eyes would be staring at her scars.
“God saved her for a reason, and he gave her the strength to see this through,” Busby’s mother said.
“She has suffered so much,” said her aunt. “I don’t think anything can stop her now.”
Busby said she has persevered because of the love and support of her family — her mother, aunt, brother Rodrigo Busby and her boyfriend. The entire family emigrated from Brazil when Roberta was 5, but her father died of cancer when she was barely older than her oldest daughter.
Today, Busby said, it is her children — Marissa, 9, and Gabriella, 6 – who have been the inspirations to recover her health.
“I’ve already got on with my life,” she said. “I get to see my kids. That’s the most important thing.”
What may have also helped Busby go forward, Musante said, is that she has blacked out all memory of the attack — and perhaps closed off any nightmares that might haunt her.
In her brief testimony, she could not recall what happened on the night of the attack outside the Babes N’ Beer Bar in Tarzana.
But the attack was documented by surveillance videos from both inside and outside the club, and two witnesses identified Theriault-Odom as the person who doused her with gasoline from a Dr Pepper bottle and lit her on fire from the waist up.
Busby, who now lives with her mother and extended family in Simi Valley, had been a part-time bikini dancer at Babes N’ Beer, where she had gone to work after losing a job with a bill collection agency.
She said she is now looking ahead to the day she is fully recovered.
“I would like to help other people,” she said. “I always wanted to work with disabled kids. After being at the burn center and seeing all the little kids, that’s touching.
“It’s important to me. I’m not only somebody’s daughter, I’m somebody’s mom.”
Busby has undergone extensive treatment at the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks, compliments of the Circle of Care Foundation that funds programs at Grossman.
“This was a tragedy in her life, which should never happen to someone,” said Ed Lewis, executive director of the Circle of Care Foundation. “We’re there to help (Grossman Center) patients get back on their feet.”
Busby is grateful for all the help she has gotten.
“They’re taking care of me,” Busby said, “and there’s new procedures, too, that they’re going to have me experiment with . … Surgery is no fun, but I think I’m used to it now.”
In his closing argument in the case, Musante called Busby’s survival “a miracle.”
“It’s because of Roberta’s incredible will to live and the wizards of the Grossman Burn Center that she is still here with us,” he said.
Busby said she marvels at her recovery to date.
“It’s insane. I just had a doctor’s appointment Tuesday, and I told my doctor, `A year ago, I thought I had no chance of making it. I had a 30 percent chance of living,” she said.
But Busby does not kid herself. She knows she still has a long road ahead of her, but she said she is ready for what may lie ahead, as are her children.
“They have dealt with what I have gone through,” said Busby. “The thing that upset me was that I didn’t get to see my (youngest) daughter’s first day at kindergarten.”
Understandably, Busby breaks down emotionally and becomes teary-eyed at times, thinking of what happened to her and what she has lost.
“That’s something that hurts,” she. “Actually we went to go pick up my daughter (from kindergarten) and all the little kids were staring at me.
“And you know, I got stared at before …”
TONY CASTRO, the former award-winning Los Angeles columnist and author, is a writer-at-large and the national political writer for LAMonthly. org. He can be reached at tony@tonycastro.com.
