Manhattan man busted for setting sleeping drug addict ablaze with lighter in Lower East Side stairwell
One day after a neighbor set a sleeping drug addict ablaze inside his building, a Lower East Side man on Saturday recounted the horrifying scene when he tried to extinguish the burning victim.
Christopher Watson, 37, rushed to the landing near his third-floor apartment after his nephew saw the flames and ran screaming into their home.
He was unprepared for the gruesome sight awaiting him Friday afternoon.
“He had clothes on, but they were like melted in his skin,” Watson recalled.
“He was on fire, like he was burning up. [I] smelled it. He wasn’t even crying or anything like that. He wasn’t even making noise. He was just on fire.”
The critically-injured man, believed to be in his 30s, suffered severe burns across more than 75% of his body after Nathaniel Terry, who lives in the building, set the victim’s pants leg afire with a lighter about 4:50 p.m., police said. Terry was trying to “scare” the victim off, a police source said.
Terry, 27, was charged with attempted murder, assault and arson after police found surveillance video of the attack inside the Samuel Gompers Houses.
At arraignment Saturday night in Manhattan Criminal Court, a judge set his bail at $75,000 cash or $150,000 bond.
The unidentified victim was in a medically induced coma at the New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center burn unit on Saturday with burns over 75% of his body, police said.
Residents of the Gompers Houses building told cops they frequently saw the man snoozing in its hallways and stairwells.
The victim was sprawled out in a stairwell when Terry encountered him on Friday afternoon, according to surveillance video described in a criminal complaint.
After Terry started the blaze by setting the man’s pants leg on fire, he fled down the stairs, the complaint says.
The fire quickly spread, engulfing the victim — who burned for several minutes before help arrived, says the complaint.
Anita Martinez, a 15-year resident of the building, said the homeless often found refuge inside the building, where surveillance cameras provide the only security.
“There’s no one checking up on this building,” she said. “They would bring a mattress inside the staircase, and they would sleep in the staircase. There’s a lot of foot traffic in this building, and none of them are for our safety. They are all homeless. They are all unwelcome visitors.”
Residents have often complained about the homeless sleeping in the building’s hallways and staircases, a police source confirmed.
Michael Rivera, 42, was visiting family inside the building when the police arrived to find the victim.
“I don’t know if somebody set him on fire, or if he set himself on fire,” said Rivera. “But he was burnt to a crisp.”
“I feel for that guy,” said Watson. “I just want to know if he made it. My nephew, he was pretty messed up about it.”
It was the first arrest for Terry, who admitted under questioning by police to setting the fire in an attempt to frighten off the homeless man, the sources added.
