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Elevator fire killer 'methodical'
Source: Agencies |
December 20, 2011, Tuesday
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AS Deloris Gillespie went up the elevator to her fifth-floor Brooklyn apartment, carrying groceries, her killer was waiting. Though no one may have seen him, he had been in the building long enough for neighbors to have smelled something odd.
Surveillance video from inside the small elevator shows that he looked something like an exterminator, with a canister sprayer, white gloves and a dust mask, which was perched atop his head like a pair of sunglasses. The sprayer was full of flammable liquid.
When the elevator opened on Saturday afternoon, the man sprayed the 73-year-old woman, who turned around and crouched down to try to protect herself, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. The attacker sprayed Gillespie in the face and continued to spray her "sort of methodically" over her head and parts of her body as her bags of groceries draped off her arms, Browne said.
Then, Browne said, the attacker pulled out a barbecue-style lighter and used it to ignite a rag in a bottle. He waited a few seconds as Gillespie huddled on the floor. Then he backed out of the elevator and tossed the flaming bottle in.
Neighbors in the Prospect Height building reported a fire, but had no idea that a woman was being burned alive.
Overnight, a 47-year-old man stinking of gasoline went into a police station and implicated himself in Gillespie's death, Browne said. The suspect, Jerome Isaac, told police he set her on fire because she owed him US$2,000 for some work he had done for her, Browne said.
Jaime Holguin, who lives on the same floor as Gillespie did, saw surveillance pictures of the attacker and said, "Oh, my God!"
Holguin said the attacker looked like a man who lived with Gillespie for about six months last year and appeared to have been helping her out.
That arrangement apparently ended by early 2011, but months later Holguin started seeing the man nearby on the street, looking "a lot more disheveled."
Browne said that after setting Gillespie ablaze, Isaac set another fire at his own apartment building nearby, then hid on a roof before turning himself in to police.
Isaac was arrested on Sunday on murder and arson charges.
Residents were evacuated and kept away from the six-story building for hours on Saturday night as police investigated.
Surveillance video from inside the small elevator shows that he looked something like an exterminator, with a canister sprayer, white gloves and a dust mask, which was perched atop his head like a pair of sunglasses. The sprayer was full of flammable liquid.
When the elevator opened on Saturday afternoon, the man sprayed the 73-year-old woman, who turned around and crouched down to try to protect herself, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. The attacker sprayed Gillespie in the face and continued to spray her "sort of methodically" over her head and parts of her body as her bags of groceries draped off her arms, Browne said.
Then, Browne said, the attacker pulled out a barbecue-style lighter and used it to ignite a rag in a bottle. He waited a few seconds as Gillespie huddled on the floor. Then he backed out of the elevator and tossed the flaming bottle in.
Neighbors in the Prospect Height building reported a fire, but had no idea that a woman was being burned alive.
Overnight, a 47-year-old man stinking of gasoline went into a police station and implicated himself in Gillespie's death, Browne said. The suspect, Jerome Isaac, told police he set her on fire because she owed him US$2,000 for some work he had done for her, Browne said.
Jaime Holguin, who lives on the same floor as Gillespie did, saw surveillance pictures of the attacker and said, "Oh, my God!"
Holguin said the attacker looked like a man who lived with Gillespie for about six months last year and appeared to have been helping her out.
That arrangement apparently ended by early 2011, but months later Holguin started seeing the man nearby on the street, looking "a lot more disheveled."
Browne said that after setting Gillespie ablaze, Isaac set another fire at his own apartment building nearby, then hid on a roof before turning himself in to police.
Isaac was arrested on Sunday on murder and arson charges.
Residents were evacuated and kept away from the six-story building for hours on Saturday night as police investigated.
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