This Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 surveillance photo provided by the New York (City) Police Dept. shows a suspect wanted in connection with a homicide, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. A woman burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building Saturday afternoon after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail, police said. (AP Photo/New York Police Dept.)
This Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 surveillance photo provided by the New York (City) Police Dept. shows a suspect wanted in connection with a homicide, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. A woman burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building Saturday afternoon after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail, police said. (AP Photo/New York Police Dept.)
Police arrive at the scene where a woman burned to death in the elevator of her apartment building after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Jaime Holguin)
Police arrive at the scene where a woman burned to death in the elevator of her apartment building after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Jaime Holguin)
NEW YORK (AP) ? A man reeking of gasoline walked into a police station overnight and implicated himself in the death of a woman hosed down with an accelerant and set ablaze in the elevator of her apartment building, authorities said Sunday.
The 47-year-old man, who hasn't been charged, said he had started a fire, said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne. The man's identity hasn't been released.
Deloris Gillespie, 64, was ambushed in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building on Saturday afternoon, doused with an accelerant and set afire with a Molotov cocktail, Browne said. The suspect had been waiting for her when the elevator doors opened to the fifth floor of her apartment building in Prospect Heights, police said.
"It was apparent he knew she was on the elevator," he said Saturday.
The attack happened shortly after 4 p.m., lasted about a minute and was recorded by two video cameras, including one inside the small elevator.
Jaime Holguin, the manager of news development for The Associated Press and who lives on the same floor as Gillespie, said he and his girlfriend had taken the elevator on their way out of the building shortly before the attack. They didn't see anyone on the floor with them but did notice an odd smell, as if someone was painting, he said.
Holguin said police told them later that the assailant was already in the building and perhaps had hidden on another floor when they left their apartment.
He remembered Gillespie as nice but sometimes a little off. "At least with me, some days she'd be very, very pleasant, and then the next time, she would almost ignore me," he said.
Gillespie also went through a period this year where she would place duct tape over her apartment door whenever she left.
In the video, the elevator doors opens to the floor where Gillespie's apartment was located and the assailant steps in and sprays her, Browne said.
Gillespie, who had grocery bags in her arms, turned about 180 degrees and then crouched to protect herself, he said. But the man sprayed her directly in the face and continued to spray her "sort of methodically" over her head and parts of her body as the bags draped off her arms, Browne said. She turned and retreated to the back of the elevator.
Then, Browne said, the suspect pulled out a barbecue-style lighter, used it to ignite a rag in a bottle and then waited for a few seconds before using the flames to set her afire, causing smoke to fill the elevator.
The man backed out as she fell to the floor of the elevator, Browne said, and seemed to pause before tossing the bottle inside the elevator and onto her.
Browne wouldn't comment on a motive in the killing but said the suspect knew Gillespie.
Police released still images of the man Saturday night, showing him in a black jacket, wearing what appear to be surgical gloves and with a white dust mask perched atop his head like a pair of sunglasses. He is holding what appears to be a canister with a nozzle and spraying as he steps into the elevator.
Neighbors reported a fire in the building, unaware that the woman was burning to death in the elevator.
Residents were evacuated and kept away from the six-story building for hours Saturday night as police investigated.
On Sunday, Holguin said the fifth floor was a mess, with a melted elevator door and a layer of water on the floor.
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Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report from New York.
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