![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ROBERT.BOYD.png\"\/)
<\/p>\nTAMPA, FLA. \u2014 A Tampa man received 40 years in prison on Tuesday for lighting a man on fire at a gas station after an argument in 2023, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Earl Hargrove, 37, pleaded guilty in court on to second-degree murder in the death of Paul Gerbasi. <\/p>\n
On May 28, 2023, Hargove was at the Mobile gas station, 14516 22nd St. North, Tampa, when he got into an argument with Gerbasi. <\/p>\n
Afterward, Hargrove went into the gas station store and purchased 50 cents of gasoline, the Hillsborough County State Attorney\u2019s Office said. <\/p>\n
He then left and pumped 50 cents worth of fuel into a gas can.<\/p>\n
According to video surveillance, Hargrove, walked over to Gerbasi who was sitting on the south side of the station and poured the gas on him. He then used a lighter to set the victim on fire. When Hargrove was arrested, he had a lighter in his possession, authorities said. <\/p>\n
Gerbasi, 66, suffered severe burns and died two weeks later.<\/p>\n
During questioning with a Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office detective after the crime, Hargrove said, \u201che looks like a monster and he lit someone on fire,\u201d an arrest affidavit stated.<\/p>\n
Hargrove was sentenced to 40 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation. <\/p>\n
The victim’s family was in court as Hargrove accepted responsibility for his actions, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Chief of Major Crimes John Terry prosecuted the case.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Father searches for answers after son’s death inside Dick’s House of Sports<\/p>\n
On Friday, 15-year-old Jaden Law was found dead inside a fitting room at the Dick’s House of Sports at Brandon Exchange following gunshots.<\/p>\n
Father searches for answers after son’s death inside Dick’s House of Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, FLA. \u2014 A Tampa man received 40 years in prison on Tuesday for lighting a man on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[57494,855,1288,276,140011,1933,135,5910,108336,3670,137,136,208],"class_list":["post-340724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-40-years","tag-fire","tag-gas-station","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-lit","tag-murder","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-28","tag-tampa-bay-28-news","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}