99-Year-Old Woman Who Uses A Wheelchair Shocked To Find Stranger Torching Front Lawn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- There were scary moments for a defenseless, elderly woman in the Bronx on Friday. The woman said she thinks someone tried to burn her house down.
Georgia Yelverton, a 99-year-old great, great, great-grandmother told CBS2's Scott Rapoport that her eyes have seen a lot of things over her lifetime, but nothing quite as senseless as what happened outside her home in the Unionport section of the Bronx on Friday morning.
"Oh, it's been very shocking and upsetting," she said.
Police said just after midnight, just outside her window, a man she didn't know started pouring gasoline on Yelverton's garden and front yard fence, before lighting it up -- torching her rose bushes.
Char marks were left on the sidewalk along with the top of what appears to be a lighter.
"That's frightening. When you are handicapped and in your room, and someone tries to burn the house down and you don't know nothing," she said.
For Georgia who lives alone, uses a wheelchair, and recently suffered a mini-stroke, the anxiety is the worst of it.
"We don't know if we are going out the door if someone is out there to harm us," she said.
Georgia said she can't understand why someone would do that to somebody.
"Your guess is as good as mine. I don't bother anybody, I'm quiet," she said.
Police said the firebug took off holding a gas can, and hightailed it in a red, two-door Toyota down Black Rock Avenue. He has yet to be caught, but Georgia has a message for him.
"Please don't bother me or burn down my little rose bushes, and me and my house," she said.
Fire investigators are now canvassing the neighborhood, hoping to find surveillance video of the crime, while police actively search for the suspect who callously vandalized and frightened the most innocent among us.
Georgia comforts herself by speculating that the person who did this mistakenly hit the wrong house.
