NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — Police arrested and charged a 65-year-old woman on Saturday for allegedly setting her 70-year-old boyfriend on fire as he slept in their Brooklyn home, killing him.
Jennifer Rochard was charged with second-degree murder and second-degree arson after her arrest at 8:40 p.m. Saturday night, police said.
At about 11:15 p.m. on Friday night, first responders arrived at an apartment complex located at 371 Monroe St., near Throop Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, after receiving a call reporting smoke inside an apartment.
Citizen App footage from the scene of a fatal Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment fire shows the FDNY response.Citizen
Firefighters extinguished the blaze and found 70-year-old Vetus Roberts unconscious and unresponsive in his bedroom. EMS pronounced him dead at the scene.
Rochard is accused of pouring gasoline on the victim as he slept and lighting him and his mattress on fire, sources said, after fire marshals determined that the blaze was intentionally set. Her motive was not immediately clear.
After allegedly setting the fire, Rochard was transported by medical personnel to NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull for treatment of smoke inhalation. She is in stable condition and was later arrested, police said.
"My dad was hard-working and loved, and he shouldn't have died that way," Roberts' daughter Genaira Roberts told the New York Daily News through tears. "What was done to him was wrong…. They're going to pay for it. That's it."
His daughter said that she and her two siblings did not have a good relationship with Rochard, who acted as Roberts' caregiver as he struggled with his vision and mobility. Neighbors told reporters that Roberts has been in the apartment for over a decade.
