NEW YORK – A man accused of killing a woman by setting her on fire in a lift has told police he did it because she owed him $2,000 (€1,290), police officials have said.
Deloris Gillespie was riding in the lift to her fifth-floor apartment in Brooklyn, New York, when the attack took place on Saturday.
Surveillance video from inside the small lift shows that the attacker looked something like an exterminator, with a canister sprayer, white gloves and a dust mask. He sprayed Ms Gillespie in the face and continued to spray her “sort of methodically” over her head and parts of her body. Then he pulled out a barbecue-style lighter and used it to ignite a rag in a bottle. He waited a few seconds as Ms Gillespie huddled on the floor.
Then he backed out of the elevator and tossed the flaming bottle in.
A 47-year-old man smelling of petrol went into a police station and implicated himself in Ms Gillespie’s death, a police spokesman said. The suspect, Jerome Isaac, told police he set her on fire because she owed him money, Mr Browne said. – (AP)