PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A Scranton man has been charged with homicide and arson in Sunday’s early-morning fire in Doylestown that killed an 81-year-old man.
Authorities say 61-year-old Christopher Gillie took his roommate’s SUV as well as the keys to her parents’ house. Police say around 2 a.m., he drove to her parents’ house on Private Drive in Buckingham Township and set it on fire.
According to the criminal complaint, the couple who lived in the house were in their 80s.
The 85-year-old woman told police she and her husband have difficulty getting around without a walker or cane. She said she saw the headlights of a car coming up the driveway and heard the creak of their front door opening.
When the smoke alarm went off, she said she got in their chairlift to get down the stairs, but the fire knocked out the electricity and the chair stopped.
She made it to a neighbor’s house, but her husband, later identified as Julius Drelick, died in the home.
Police say the house was fully engulfed by flames and smoke.
Video from a neighbor’s home showed a light-colored SUV pulling in the Drelicks’ driveway around 2 a.m., then leaving about 15 minutes before the first 911 call.
Court documents say dogs that are trained to sniff out the possibility of arson hit on three different spots in the home. Investigators also found four empty beer cans in and around the house.
About four or five hours after the fire started, Gillie was pulled over while driving his roommate’s SUV. The criminal complaint says he told police he was drunk.
The complaint also says Gillie smelled like gasoline and he had a lighter in his front seat and the keys to the burnt home in his pocket. An older-style rifle, which was hanging over the fireplace in the Drelicks’ home, was found in his back seat.
“I can’t stop thinking about that chairlift frozen in place by the fire in the middle of the stairs,” District Attorney Matt Weintraub said in a statement. “I cannot imagine the terror that they both must have felt as they were separated by the fire. Now, forever.”
Court records show Gillie served prison time for a previous arson conviction in Lackawanna County. He is being held without bail.