A Bronx man has died after setting himself and girlfriend on fire in a murder-suicide in the Bronx, on
Saturday in Adams Place, Belmont.
Police and neighbors said the man died soon after he was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, authorities said.
Berta Booker, 49, who was identified as the girlfriend, was also taken to St. Barnabas. She died overnight, according to police.
A third victim, a man about 50 years old, was injured in the blaze. His condition was unclear on Sunday afternoon.
Police have not released the identities of either man.
“She tried to break it off with him,” Booker’s sister-in-law, Belinda Booker, told the Daily News. “She said he was mentally acting strange and she wanted to get away from him. I can’t help but think that this could have been avoided.”
Booker has two adult children, a 20-year-old daughter and a 26-year-old son, her sister-in-law said.
She would regularly send money back to family members in the Dominican Republic, where she was born.
She started seeing the boyfriend last summer, Belinda Booker said.
“Sometimes people get worse and worse the more you know them. I think she really wanted to get away from him,” she said. “We did love her very much. She was very generous with people and she was just trying to make her way. She was full of life.”
Booker “was a good person. She was friendly,” said Moussa Banba, a neighbor. Banba said she heard fighting in the apartment, “but I never saw it personally.”
A friend said the dead man was 43 and from Brooklyn and that he was with him when he bought a lighter shortly before the fire.
The two were on their way to run an errand when the man with the lighter stopped off to see his girlfriend and drop off his laundry, leaving the car running.
“Usually he does this and it takes him about a minute to come back downstairs. But it was like 15 minutes, so I thought, ‘Oh, they’re arguing again,’ ” said the friend, who declined to give his name.
“I heard them yelling and screaming inside, but it sounded like it always does when they fight.
I didn’t think this time was any different. I was sitting in the car and I got out to go upstairs to get him. Then all these people were outside the building and saying, ‘Yo, that’s your boy. Your boy’s on the floor.’ ”
The friend said the boyfriend did not seem in distress before the attack.
“I had no idea what was going on or what had happened,” the pal said.
“All of a sudden they were bringing them out on the stretchers and he was black, as black as my shirt.
All his face, his chest, his arms and hands were burnt to a crisp. He was like red with blood on his chest, and had black charred skin.
He was still smoking. There was smoke coming off his skin.”
The man’s friend said he didn’t think he had initially murder in mind.
“He didn’t come here to attack her. The only reason he was here was to pick me up to give me a ride,” the friend said. “He only went in there to drop off his laundry.”
With John Annese
