NYPD: Deadly elevator fire ambush incident was over unpaid debt

The woman killed owed the suspect $2,000, according to the suspect. The man who allegedly ambushed a woman getting out of an elevator was upset about not receiving payment over work he had done for her, according to the NYPD. The victim, 74-year-old Deloris Gillespie, reportedly took the suspect, Jerome Isaac, in for about six months as he worked for her, but their relationship had deteriorated, and he had been removed from Gillespie’s home earlier this year. One interesting facet about the story: One of the people who lived on the same floor as Gillespie, Jaime Holguin, is an AP employee who knew both the suspect and the victim, and is cited heavily throughout the source article. For now, Holguin and other residents have been evacuated from the building, as remnants of the brutal attack, including a melted elevator door, remain. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

In these screenshots shown above, the suspect in this deadly attack is shown dousing a woman with gasoline and lighting a Molotov cocktail, which he then threw at the victim. According to authorities (who haven’t released the identity of the man or the motive in the attack), the man knew 74-year-old new york city, nyc, nyc elevators, nyc elevator attack, Molotov cocktail, firebombing attack, Deloris Gillespie, and was waiting for her when her elevator came down. He then ambushed her. The man walked into a police station Saturday night, reeking of gasoline, and implicated himself in the horrific death. Awful situation all around. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 a.m. the time at which Suzanne Hart, an NYC advertising executive, died in a freak elevator accident Wednesday
7 p.m. the time at which officials were able to fully to fully extricate her body from the elevator source

» How often does this happen? It’s fairly rare for an elevator to cause such an issue in NYC — despite the fact that roughly 60,000 elevators operate in the skyscraper-heavy city, there were just 53 accidents in 2010, only three of which were fatal. (Accidents of this nature, however, aren’t unprecedented; Jerry Fuchs, a prominent indie rock drummer who played with !!! and LCD Soundsystem, amongst others, died in 2009 after falling into an elevator shaft.) But the level of shock amongst her co-workers at Y&R — which had its employees work from home in the wake of the news — was strong; Hart was a well-respected figure in the advertising world. And to make things worse, the company was in the midst of moving to a newer building with a better elevator. This story is just awful.

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Dec 2011 10:30