ST. LOUIS • A 79-year-old woman was driving to church Sunday morning when three men pulled up alongside her in a Monte Carlo with Illinois plates, according to Dionne Flowers, alderwoman from the city's 2nd Ward.

"What's up OG, don't get too hot," the passenger in the back seat said before hurling a Molotov cocktail into the woman's SUV, according to Flowers, who spoke to police and people who were at the scene.

It exploded, and fire torched the inside of the woman's car. She managed to escape with no injuries with the aid of Larry Middlebrook, a St. Louis Second Ward Democratic committeeman who lives near the site of the explosion at Riverview Boulevard and Orchid Avenue, Flowers said.

The woman wanted to go back in to save her Bible, but Middlebrook stopped her.