He stood, facing the exit door, the sparsely-falling, misty rain making the strands of long, unwashed hair cling to his forehead and cheeks. His breath came in short gasps as he waited in anticipation of his moment. He was waiting for someone inside to trigger the electric eye, swinging the automatic doors out toward him so he could carry out his plan.

       Inside, the shoppers laughed and joked with one another. Many were making preparations for their Fourth of July holiday weekend outings, preparations that Leigh Anne had made earlier that day. Just a few hours before she was due to report to work for a relief shift that had filled her with unexplainable dread since the moment, almost 3 weeks earlier, she had been told she was being loaned out from her regular store.

       Pretty, vivacious, 20-year-old Leigh Anne Carter, full-time college student and part-time cashier, was stationed at checkout number six, the one aligned perfectly in front of the exit door with the end only six feet from the door opening. The cashier that day, Leigh Anne stood approximately eight feet from the man who would, at any second, end her life. Leigh Anne was totally unaware that she was smiling and handing change to her customer for the last time.

       He had planned his strategy carefully, making sure he would not be stopped nor would he sustain any injury to his own person. Only minutes before, he had purchased $4.60 in unleaded gas, approximately three gallons, from the Shop & Go, a convenience store across the street from the supermarket that was his target for destruction. He pumped the gas into a legal, approved closed container, crossed the street and went behind the Winn Dixie Supermarket, where he transferred the gas to an open, yellow can he had left there for that reason.

       His moment arrived; the exit door opened and he was ready. He leaned forward, tilted the can and heaved. The gasoline splashed into the store, splattering Leigh Anne with at least two-thirds of its contents. He gave one quick roll to the wheel of his green Bic lighter, and the inside of the store grew instantly into a flaming inferno. The air swooped through the opening to fuel the blaze. He stepped back to allow the exit doors to close inward, encasing the fire inside and protecting himself from the impact.

       John William (Billy) Ferry, Jr. ran across the parking lot laughing, muttering unintelligible, guttural sounds under his breath, finally shouting to anyone who cared to listen, "That'll show those bastards!"

       He didn't even glance back over his shoulder when the explosion ripped through the store, shaking the earth for blocks around, culminating in a mushroom cloud of smoke and flames visible for miles from the parking lot. He paid no attention to the display of multi-colored sparkles that he had created when the fire reached the sparklers and the fireworks that were for sale inside the store.

       He didn't see Leigh Anne's body, now a huge ball of orange flames and black smoke, belched upward and back from the checkout stand to land, for the first time, between the grocery shelves halfway to the back of the store.

       Nor did he wince when Leigh Anne's charred remains were once again catapulted high into the air from the still-raging explosive impacts and land outside the store, nestling amid the watermelons in a display that graced the sidewalk. Here she remained hidden for several hours while officials searched for her. The only remaining evidence to identify the blackened lump as a human was a small, gold charm that had, only minutes before, hung around her neck. Now, the gold "Leigh" was melted into what was once her chest.

       Inside the store, mayhem erupted. Panic-stricken, screaming people shoved and clawed their way to the back of the store, attempting to win a race with the flames that had mushroomed upward and were crawling across the ceiling just over their heads. Those closest to the front, their bodies already encased in flames, groped blindly for the door. Many were grabbing at those bodies nearest them that had already fallen in a desperate attempt to drag someone, anyone, to safety. The would-be rescuers slipped, slid and floundered onto the floloundered onto the floor that was wet from the sprinkler system whose pitiful but brave efforts had tried vainly to help.

       Bodies were trampled under the feet of the terror-maddened melee and many were crushed beneath the flame-rotted boards falling from overhead. They tried to drag themselves to safety on broken bones and severed limbs.

       A tiny person, whose gender was no longer distinguishable, fell into the waiting arms of an off-duty fireman whose futile attempts to save her left him standing with tears of frustration and outrage pouring down his face. Behind him, her mother's blackened lips still screamed, forming their final words. "My baby! My baby! Where's my baby?" Martha Vance screamed for her 2-year-old daughter, Jennifer. They were buried in one grave.

       Carl Jackson, the off-duty fireman who was only there to shop, screamed for ice. He applied it to the seared body of a woman, knowing he couldn't save her. He held her, his reassuring words of comfort falling on dying ears. She reached out to him, her eyes glassy with pain and fear. "I'm dying! I know I'm dying!" He ran the cooling balm across her hairless scalp and her lidless eyes, while the skin from the remains of her face emains of her face peeled off in his hands.

       Outside the store, people writhed in agony on the asphalt, squirming in the puddles left by the rain, screaming to an unseen Savior for help. A still erect person, no longer able to scream nor beg for mercy, watched her own body crumble like dry paper, watched in horror as tiny ashes of her own flesh blew away in the wind.

       Saturday, July 2, 1983, as the flames cut through the wiring, the hands on the cheery clock in the back of the store stood still at 8:10 PM. Its friendly face ran down the wall in large, plastic tears, crying for the five who died and the thirteen injured so needlessly.