Man Who Set Woman on Fire in Elevator Cops to 50-Year Plea Deal

The man who doused 71-year-old Delores Gillespie in gasoline before setting her on fire inside of an Underhill Avenue elevator last December has accepted a plea deal of 50 years to life in prison, a spokesman for the Brooklyn DA's Office told Patch Friday. 

No expert has diagnosed Jerome Isaac as mentally ill, so an insanity defense was not an option, according to the Daily News, which reported Wednesday that Isaac was expected to take the deal.  

"Basically he will die in jail,” Gillespie's daughter Sheila Hillsman told the Daily News. “I'm satisfied with that because he shouldn't be out in the streets again. It's too bad that New York doesn't have the death penalty because I believe they should do to him exactly what he did to my mother."

He will be sentenced on Oct. 29, said the District Attorney's Office spokesman.

Hillsman told the Daily News that she was assured that Isaac would not be eligible for parole before age 97.

Gillespie’s murder, on Dec. 17, 2011, was caught on the elevator’s security camera. In the footage, Isaac, dressed as an exterminator, is seen dousing the woman’s body with gasoline, before he lights her on fire, and then throws a Molotov cocktail into the elevator.

Isaac said that Gillespie owed him $2,100 for five months worth of cleaning work done in her apartment.

Related Stories:

- Man Burns Woman Alive in Underhill Avenue Elevator

- UPDATE: Man Charged with Setting Woman on Fire in Underhill Avenue Elevator (with video of the attack)

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- Son of Woman Set Ablaze: 'All She Did Was Give'

- Fund Set Up for Family of Woman Set on Fire in Underhill Avenue Elevator