Suspect in NYC woman's burning appears in court

[troung]

Suspect in NYC woman's burning appears in court
APBy VERENA DOBNIK | AP – 12 hrs ago
Suspect in NYC woman's burning appears in court - Yahoo! News


NEW YORK (AP) — The New York man suspected of spraying a 73-year-old woman with gasoline and setting her on fire in an elevator was charged Monday with murder and arson.

Jerome Isaac appeared in court with the left side of his face badly burned and peeling. He said nothing. He was held without bail, and his lawyer requested solitary confinement for the 47-year-old, as well as medical attention.

Surveillance video from the elevator shows the attack.

According to the criminal complaint, Isaac sprayed Delores Gillespie with gasoline as she stood in the elevator that had just opened to the 5th floor of her apartment building. She crouched and cowered, grocery bags draped off her arms.

Isaac pulled out a barbecue-style lighter, authorities said, and used it to ignite a rag in a bottle. He waited a few seconds, then backed out of the elevator and tossed the flaming bottle in, authorities said.

Gillespie died from burns to her body and smoke inhalation, according to the criminal complaint.

Isaac has no criminal record, but that does not mean he is not highly dangerous, Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Taub said.

"I know this is the defendant's first offense, but the depravity of this particular single act is beyond my description," he said.

Isaac's next court date is Friday.

After Isaac fled the building, he went around the corner and set his brother's apartment door on fire, according to the complaint.

Police believe Isaac then hid on a nearby rooftop for hours before he surrendered to police, reeking of gasoline.

According to police, he said he burned Gillespie because she owed him $2,000 for some odd jobs he had done for her.

When Jaime Holguin, who lives on the same floor as Gillespie, saw surveillance pictures of the attacker he said, "Oh, my God!"

Holguin, the manager of news development for The Associated Press, said the man in the surveillance pictures looked like a man who had lived with Gillespie for about six months last year and appeared to have been helping her out.

Gillespie's arrangement with Isaac appeared to have ended by early 2011, but months later Holguin started seeing the man nearby on the street, looking "a lot more disheveled" and pushing a cart full of aluminum cans.

Holguin said the fire melted the elevator door.

Holguin said he and his girlfriend had taken the elevator on their way out of the building shortly before the attack. They didn't see anyone on the floor with them but did notice an odd smell, as if someone was painting, he said.

He remembered Gillespie as nice but sometimes a little off. "At least with me, some days she'd be very, very pleasant, and then the next time, she would almost ignore me," he said.

Gillespie also went through a period this year where she would place duct tape over her apartment door whenever she left, Holguin said.

___

Associated Press writers Deepti Hajela and Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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December 19, 2011, 1:40 pm
No Bail for Man Accused of Burning Woman Alive
By TIM STELLOH
Jerome Isaac at his arraignment on Monday.Pool photo by Jesse WardJerome Isaac at his arraignment on Monday.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...g-woman-alive/

Jerome Isaac entered the courtroom in handcuffs and a white Tyvek suit, bearing what appeared to be the aftereffects of a horrific crime. Red, glistening blotches dotted his cheek and neck; his lip and left eye were badly swollen.

The injuries, Kenneth M. Taub, a prosecutor, said Monday, were evidence of Mr. Isaac’s role in one of the more brutal killings in recent memory in New York City: the methodical immolation of Deloris Gillespie, 73, in the elevator of her apartment building in Brooklyn.

Mr. Isaac was ordered held without bail at his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court. He said nothing during the proceeding, and his court-appointed lawyer added little more.

Though Mr. Isaac had never been accused of a crime before, Mr. Taub said, “the depravity of this single act is beyond my description.”

On Saturday afternoon, two surveillance cameras captured a man, who the authorities believe is Mr. Isaac, cornering Ms. Gillespie as she was about to emerge from the elevator on the fifth floor of the building, on Underhill Avenue.

The man — dressed as an exterminator, wearing a protective mask and white gloves and carrying a fuel tank — doused Ms. Gillespie with accelerant and set her ablaze with a Molotov cocktail, the police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr. Taub said the evidence of Mr. Isaac’s guilt, much of it contained in the surveillance video, was “overwhelming.” Mr. Isaac’s “identity is completely obvious,” he added.

Ms. Gillespie’s relatives and neighbors said Mr. Isaac, 47, who was often seen around the neighborhood collecting cans and bottles, had worked for Ms. Gillespie, helping to clear clutter from her apartment.

Ms. Gillespie, a postal worker and well-liked caretaker of the neighborhood’s homeless, came to believe that Mr. Isaac was stealing from her, relatives said, so she fired him. Mr. Isaac then began harassing her for payment, they said.

Mr. Isaac turned himself in to the authorities early Sunday. He told the police he believed he had suffered his burns while setting a fire in his own apartment building, nearby on Lincoln Place.

He faces charges of first- and second-degree murder and second-degree arson.

After Mr. Isaac’s hearing, Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents Ms. Gillespie’s district, said in a news conference that Ms. Gillespie’s family had demanded that prosecutors make no plea arrangements in the case.

“The family is asking that he be prosecuted and sentenced to the full extent of the law,” Ms. James said. “That includes a lifetime sentence.”

Ms. Gillespie’s relatives plan on searching her apartment, Ms. James said, for letters that describe how she had been harassed and threatened by Mr. Isaac.

Ms. James did not know the details of those letters, but she said Ms. Gillespie had sent them to the authorities. She added that Ms. Gillespie was unable to obtain an order of protection against Mr. Isaac because she knew him only by nicknames.

[citanon]

So there's no death penalty in NY? I hope someone shanks him in prison so tax payers could stop wasting money keeping this scum alive.