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Queens Mom Set On Fire By Ex-Boyfriend
By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 16, 2009
Modified Nov 16, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 16, 2009
Modified Nov 16, 2009
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A mother of two was set on fire in the doorway of her Long Island City apartment yesterday morning by her estranged boyfriend and father of one of the children. Neighbors in the woman's Queensbridge Houses building say the woman had previously thrown the suspect, 25-year-old Kehman Clark, out of the home. He returned to visit yesterday morning, but stormed off after a domestic dispute, only to return with a can of gasoline.
Before lighting the woman on fire, Clark is believed to have set fire to the fifth floor hallway and a staircase. An FDNY source tells the Post, "The hallway was completely blacked out, and when we got there, there were kids screaming in the bedrooms. We think he was trying to trap her on the fifth floor." A neighbor says Clark "knocked on her door, threw gasoline on her lit a match and she went up in flames. I heard the screams from my apartment. She didn’t want anything to do with him, but he kept coming back like a stalker, and this is what happens."
The unidentified woman ran from the apartment and up a staircase to the sixth floor, where a neighbor put out the flames. She was hospitalized with non-life threatening burns to her legs, back, and torso. Clark reportedly suffered the worst injuries, sustaining second-degree burns on his arms and legs after he tried to chase the woman and slipped in the gasoline and set himself on fire. He's in police custody at Harlem Hospital Center, and the two children, ages 1 and 3, were treated at Elmhurst Hospital for smoke inhalation.
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queensbridge apartments
woman
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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