PEOPLE<\/a>, Eleanor Crawford allegedly walked up to another woman at a Mobil gas station in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Thursday, Sep. 10. She asked the victim if she could use her phone. The victim allowed it.\u00a0<\/p>\nCrawford then asked the victim for money. The victim said no. That is when Crawford allegedly approached the victim and “deliberately ignited gasoline with a lighter.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to a news release from the St. Petersburg Police Department (SPPD), the victim’s vehicle was swallowed up in flames. The 41-year-old was “seriously injured.” She was transported to Tampa General Hospital for treatment of the second-degree burns she suffered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police said Crawford, who is also 41, was arrested nearby. She did not know the victim, and her motive is not known. Crawford is facing felony charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police Call the Burns “Horrific”<\/p>\n
At a press conference, Assistant Police Chief Mike Kovacsev called the victim’s burns “horrific.”<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of a unique case, because you don’t see anything like this \u2014 especially something that results in such horrific burns,” he said. “But [police] went out there, they worked with the fire department, and luckily they were able to get [the victim] stabilized, and she’s going to make it.”<\/p>\n
A witness parked nearby said the scene resembled a “fireball.” He then helped the victim to his truck and called 911.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Crawford is being held on a $350,000 bond, according to arrest records. She is awaiting trial. It is unknown whether she has retained an attorney at this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This incident follows an earlier\u00a0altercation<\/a>\u00a0this year. In June, an Army veteran died after being shot in front of a Walmart in North Lauderdale, Florida. Footage showed a heated argument over a parking space outside the store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman in Florida allegedly set a stranger on fire at a gas station. She is being charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[855,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-400789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-fire","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400789","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=400789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}