Jerome Isaac in court today. (Jesse Ward.)
The wild-eyed fiend accused of burning a Brooklyn woman to death inside an elevator was held without bail at his arraignment today and placed in protective custody.
Jerome “Jerry’’ Isaac, 47, was reeking of gasoline when he turned himself in to cops more than eight hours after the horrific torching Saturday that killed 73–year-old churchgoer Delores Gillespie.
At his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court, Isaac, who has been charged with murder, was held without bail. He did not enter a plea.
FIEND CONFESSES TO ELEVATOR BLAZE THAT KILLED B’KLYN WOMAN
Assistant DA Kenneth Taub said the crime was caught on chilling surveillance images.
“The evidence of this particularly heinous and brutal murder is beyond question,” Taub said. “When he was arrested, he was reeking of accelerant. As the court can see, the burns on his body are consistent with the images.”
Half of Isaac’s face appeared scorched.
Isaac, who said nothing during the brief hearing, is due back in court on Friday.
“I know this is the defendant’s first offense, but the depravity of this particular single act is beyond my description,” Taub said.
City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), who was present at the arraignment, saying Gillespie’s family will go through her belongings to find letters showing that Isaac had been harassing and tormenting her.
“[Gillespie] was not able to get an order of of protection because she didn’t know the legal name of this defendant,” she said.
Cops said Isaac was furious that the postal clerk had refused to pay him for some of the work he’d done at her Prospect Heights apartment after she discovered he’d swiped her kitchenware and DVD player.
Isaac allegedly ambushed the terrified woman at 4:10 p.m. Saturday, standing in the fifth-floor hallway of her building as the elevator doors opened and she started to step off, returning from a trip to Key Foods with bags hanging from her wrists.
Isaac sprayed her with a flammable liquid, used a barbecue lighter to set her ablaze, tossed a Molotov cocktail at her and then sprayed her again for extra measure even though she was already engulfed in flames, screaming in agony, prosecutors said.
The madman then fled — first to his nearby apartment at 315 Lincoln Place that he shared with his brother in the gentrifying neighborhood to also try to set it ablaze, according to the criminal complaint.
The perp ran next to the rooftop of 571 Lincoln Place, where he hid, thinking he’d been burned — even though he wasn’t — and terrified that he would be easily identified if he was spotted on the street, police said.
He fell asleep on the roof, and when he woke up, Isaac went on the run again, wandering around before finally turning himself in at 12:30 a.m. at Transit District 32, about two miles away in Crown Heights, police said.
Some of the items he had allegedly used to set ablaze Gillespie were recovered on the Lincoln Place rooftop.