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Cornered by Attacker in Elevator, Fire Victim,
73, Had No Way Out
By the time Deloris Gillespie saw him, waiting on the other side of
an elevator door, it was too late to escape.
With her shopping bags in hand, she pushed open the door. There stood
a man she knew, Jerome Isaac. He set upon her immediately, the authorities
said, armed with a tank of fuel and a barbecue lighter, wearing white
gloves and a surgical mask. He was angry, he would tell the police
on Sunday, because he believed she owed him about $2,000 for odd jobs.
But there was no way Ms. Gillespie, 73, could have been prepared for
what happened.
Mr. Isaac, 47, methodically set the woman aflame, burning her alive
in the elevator of her building in Brooklyn on Saturday, only a few
feet from her apartment door, the police said. He sprayed the flammable
liquid in the woman’s face and over her cowering body, and then
lighted a Molotov cocktail to ignite the fire.
Within minutes, Ms. Gillespie was burning to death in the narrow cab,
and her assailant had fled down the stairs. The attack lasted only
a few minutes, all of it captured by surveillance cameras; the sheer,
calculated brutality stunned even the most hardened of homicide detectives.
Hunting a Suspect on His Own Tough Turf
FORT BRAGG, Calif.—In the ominous photograph,
Aaron Bassler’s pants appear ripped and soiled. With his left
hand, he is reaching through a window; in his right hand is a black
semiautomatic assault rifle.
The image, recently snapped by a surveillance camera at a cabin that
the police believe was burglarized, is the latest sighting of Mr. Bassler,
35, a local man wanted in connection with two murders here.
For the last month, Mr. Bassler, whom relatives describe as mentally
ill, has eluded the police by nimbly traversing a large swath of forestland
in Mendocino County, an isolated area three hours north of San Francisco.
It is the most intensive manhunt ever undertaken by the sheriff’s
office, Sheriff Tom Allman said.
Not
Quite a Reporter, but Raking the Muck and Reaping the Wrath
Daniel Cavanagh was nervous.
He paced the living room of his duplex apartment collecting his things:
a large digital camera, an iPhone, a black leather jacket.
“I’m about to get crushed,” he said, running his
hands through his hair.
Then Mr. Cavanagh, 26, drove the three blocks to St. James Evangelical
Lutheran Church — the meeting place of the Gerritsen Beach Property
Owners Association. It was early this month, and it was the first
time Mr. Cavanagh had been back to the church’s large meeting
room since November, when his simmering relationship with the small,
isolated neighborhood in South Brooklyn had exploded.
Tensions Persist Over a Man Long Missing
ELLENVILLE, N.Y. — The flier was bright red with a photograph
and a few lines of text: “Candlelight Vigil For Joe Helt,”
it read. “24 Years Is Too Long!”
A former classmate of Joseph Helt posted more than 15 of the fliers
this year on a well-traveled street in this mountain-ringed village
of 4,000; the vigil marked the 24th anniversary of Mr. Helt’s
disappearance.
By the next morning, all but two had been torn down, said the classmate,
Jackie Mennella.
It was unclear who removed the fliers, but they appeared targeted: Other
posters attached to nearby poles were untouched; pointed at Ms. Mennella’s
remaining fliers was a security camera from a nearby school, Ms. Mennella
said.
“To put it mildly, we were angry,” said Gina Schuster, 41,
another of Mr. Helt’s classmates who helped Ms. Mennella plan
the vigil. “It just proved to us that somebody wants to hide something.”
Since 1987, she and others have quietly questioned the story of how
Mr. Helt, an amiable teenager with a taste for Iron Maiden, became village
folklore: After hanging out with a few friends one winter night, Mr.
Helt, who was 17, vanished from one of the mountains perched above town.
For Family of Burned Woman, an Offer, but No
Help
For the family of a woman burned to death inside an elevator in Brooklyn,
the apparent act of generosity could not have come at a better time.
The killing of the woman, Deloris Gillespie, in her apartment building
brought her relatives not only shock over the crime, but also the
burden of paying for a funeral and other related costs. But then a
Wall Street banker stepped forward, pledging his financial assistance
to the family.
Husband Admits He Set Up
Killing of Wife in Street, the Police Say
BOONTON, N.J. — After his wife had been shot to
death on the street and he had been wounded, Kashif Parvaiz told the
police here in her quiet hometown in New Jersey that three men had accosted
them and, before opening fire, called them a name that is offensive
to Muslims in America: “Terrorist.”
That prompted detectives to treat the case as a bias crime, a disturbing
notion in Boonton, a town 30 miles from Manhattan that has become home
to a sizable number of middle-class Pakistanis in recent years. Among
them was the family of Mr. Parvaiz’s wife, Nazish Noorani, 27.
And they were suspicious.
By all accounts the marriage had not been going well. Ms. Noorani, prosecutors
said, recently sent her brother a text message about Mr. Parvaiz, 26,
that said, “Can’t talk to him cuz he abuses me ... I’m
so tired of this. ... Someday U will find me dead, but it’s cuz
of Kashi ... he wants to kill me.”
According to the authorities, her prophecy came true. They said Friday
that Mr. Parvaiz had confessed to having “contracted” with
a friend to kill her and wound him, apparently in hopes of fooling investigators
into thinking he, too, was a victim.
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