Metro

‘Fire fiend stole keys’

The monster accused of cornering a beloved Brooklyn grandmother in her building’s elevator and setting her ablaze waged a months-long campaign of terror against the defenseless victim — stealing the keys to her apartment and repeatedly jamming the locks every time she changed them, relatives said yesterday.

“The keys went missing for three or four days in June. He took them and made copies of them,” fumed Saeed Norris, 17, slay victim Delores Gillespie’s grieving grandson.

Suspect Jerome “Jerry” Isaac, who is being held without bail at Rikers on murder and arson charges, allegedly harassed the terrified woman, claiming she owed him more than $2,100 for odd jobs he supposedly did in her apartment.

The madman apparently snapped when the 73-year-old postal clerk refused to pay him anything after she caught him stealing her belongings.

“She changed the locks because he kept breaking in. He would jam the locks, so she had to keep changing them,” Norris said.

Maurice Gillespie, 37, Norris’ dad, said his mother “put tape on her door” to check if anyone had opened it while she was out, and “changed the locks every two weeks.”

Relatives described Gillespie as a pack rat, which is why she hired Isaac.

“That’s how he met her, she was a hoarder. He helped her clean out the apartment, and then she found out he was stealing stuff,” Norris said.

Maurice said his lonely mother first hired Isaac to help her out, but later paid him simply to keep her company.

“[Isaac] told me he saw how everybody loved her and praised her, and he told me that he wanted to help her out. She paid him every day just to sit around,” the teen said.

The relatives said that Gillespie’s apartment was packed floor-to-ceiling with her belongings, and that her bedroom was barricaded so that no one could get inside.

Norris said he once threw Isaac out of his grandmother’s house because “he was aggressive, he had an attitude,” although he said he did not get physical.

Neighbor Lamont Mathias, 50, said Isaac was never violent before the attack, even when provoked.

“One time, I yelled at him to get the f–k out of my way, and he didn’t say one word back,” Mathias said. “I don’t trust people who won’t look you in the eye. He would never look anybody in the eye. [But] I never saw him violent. That’s why I’m shocked.”