Earlier today we reported a tragic incident that happened last night involving a man fatally setting a woman on fire in a Brooklyn elevator. Luckily, police were able to arrest the suspect today. Find out who the man to blame is and why he said he did it after the jump…
(CNN)
A 47-year-old man was arrested Sunday in the death of a 73-year-old woman who was set on fire in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building, New York police said.
Jerome Isaac faces charges of first-degree and second-degree murder, along with arson, authorities said.
The victim was identified as Deloris Gillespie. Isaac also lives in Brooklyn, but does not live at the address where the incident took place, police said in a statement.
Isaac told police Gillespie owed him $2,000 for work he claims he did for her, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told CNN’s Susan Candiotti. He turned himself in to police overnight or early Sunday morning, he said.
Browne said the suspect allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Gillespie. Police earlier had said a man dressed as an exterminator sprayed the woman with an unidentified flammable liquid and set her afire.
Neighbors said the woman was returning home to her fifth-floor apartment in Prospect Heights after a grocery store trip Saturday.
A preliminary investigation showed the man was standing outside the elevator on the fifth floor and attacked the woman as she was attempting to exit, authorities said.
Authorities responding to a 911 call of a fire found the woman’s body inside the elevator. She was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the police statement.
Residents told CNN affiliate WCBS they heard screams and saw smoke — and realized a woman was on fire inside the elevator.
“Myself and someone from the sixth floor went down knocking to get people out. Knocking on doors telling people ‘There’s a fire, get out, get out,” a resident named John told the station. He did not want to give his last name.
Neighbor Carmen Martinez told the station the victim had lived in the building since the 1980s.
“She used to give toys and gifts to kids all the time,” Martinez told the station.
The attack was caught on two surveillance cameras. Photos that police released of the attacker showed a man dressed in dark blue clothes, white gloves, with a dust mask on his head and carrying a container on his back.
