UK & World News
- 12 January 2013, 16:12
Man Gets Life For Burning Woman Alive In Lift
A handyman who burned a 73-year-old woman to death in a Brooklyn lift has been sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Jerome Isaac, 48, was sentenced for killing Deloris Gillespie inside her Brooklyn apartment building in December 2011.
Isaac had pleaded guilty to first degree murder charges in November. A plea deal had called for a 50-year sentence.
The attack was captured on a security camera.
Isaac went to the fifth floor and lay in wait for his victim, who was returning home from shopping.
He is said to have first glued shut the locks on Ms Gillespie's apartment and then doused the lift door with accelerant.
As she opened it, Isaac sprayed her in the face, then covered her from head to toe in flammable liquid.
Ms Gillespie crouched down and threw her hands up to her face.
Having cornered the woman in the lift, he then ignited a Molotov cocktail - a wine bottle filled with accelerant with a rag stuffed in its neck.
The CCTV video went white as Ms Gillespie was set on fire using the bottle's wick.
Isaac then threw the bottle inside the lift, after crouching behind the door "as if he was anticipating an explosion", according to one policeman.
Isaac turned himself in the next day.
Police said Isaac attacked Ms Gillespie because he believed she owed him money.
Prosecutors said he told probation officials conducting a mental health evaluation that he acted on orders from the devil.
Update:
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what do you think?
Emma Allum
There's a fair bit if American culture I don't really agree with, but the sentencing over there is spot on. He'll be nearly 90 if he lives long enough to be released.
ListenToTeacher
100
jimmyjedi1979
98
russell
why don't they just do the same to him ? he'll be kept warm, fed and watered every day, for the rest of his life, all at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. And he's of no use to human society !!
David Wragg
Well said!
Mark Hussey
New york joke justice for you
davenlesley
Lucky it happened in the states. In this country the mention of a few voices in his head would have seen him labelled mentally ill and bunged in an institution. That is until some smart rs psychiatrist decided he was safe to be released on the care in the community programme in about 2 years time
Name witheld
This comment has been removed for violations of our Terms and Conditions.
Adrian Wagstaff
To all those people who say he wasn't mentally ill, I say this, my dad died from [some people say I go on about this all the time but I don't think I do] well, he had a blocked artery to his brain and looking back, all the time his brain was being starved of blood, he was saying some really strange things and acting quite strangely, which is to be expected. I have seen other people with similar conditions and it does make them not act as they normally would. The same goes for psychiatric illnesses. Despite what most people think, psychiatric conditions do exist and the results can often be really nasty, not only for randomly-targetted or deliberately-targetted victims but for the sufferer themselves. There could be any number of reasons why his brain acted in such a way. The fact that he told the authorities what he'd done, the very next day, signifies he probably really didn't know what he was doing, simply due to some kind of brain condition. My dad was acting totally out of character when his brain was being reduced of blood. All sorts of things can happen to brains.
Facebook User
6:34am on 12/1/2013
Acting on orders from the deviil aye. How come these creeps never hear voices telling them to get on with their job.