A Florida woman was arrested after she used nail polish remover to set her roommate on fire during a Wednesday morning argument, police said.
Melissa Dawn Sellers, 33, flew into a rage when she found out her roommate, 42-year-old Carlos Ortiz Jr., threw out her spaghetti and meatballs, a friend of Ortiz's who witnessed the incident at the Clearwater home told Bay News 9.
The argument took a violent turn when Sellers poured nail polish remover, a highly flammable liquid, all over Ortiz's upper body and set him on fire, Clearwater police said. Both of them had been drinking.
"She was setting little objects on fire, then that turned into pouring nail polish remover all over him, and then all of a sudden, the lighter sparked and he lit on fire," Ines Causevic, Ortiz's friend, told the station.
Sellers began to panic and threw water on her burning roommate to stop the fire.
"When he got up, his face was like melting off, it was pink and sore," Causevic said. "His lips were burning."
Ortiz was rushed to Tampa General Hospital with burns to his face, chest and shoulders, Fox 13 reported.
Sellers, who fled the home on Gunn Avenue after the 2:30 a.m. incident, was later arrested when she returned. She tried to play the incident off as an accident during her Pinellas County court appearance, Rob Shaw of the Clearwater police told Fox 13. But she was still charged with aggravated battery and was held at the county jail on $10,000 bond.
Those who know Ortiz, who is reportedly in critical condition, said he is a kind person who opened up his home to Sellers after she got evicted from her last residence.
"I knew she was real stressed and she had some legal problems and things," neighbor Katherine Mudse told Fox 13 of Sellers, who has prior arrests for battery and robbery. "She may have lost it but I can't imagine someone just wanting to hurt someone viciously like that. It's a horrible thing."
