A judge in Wisconsin gave a woman 11 years in jail on Friday for setting a house on fire on purpose, which killed a blind man who was sleeping on a mattress inside.
Merchelle Adams, 63, admitted to killing Anthony Winters, 60, without a good reason in July. This is what the court papers show. She will be on probation for 9 years after she gets out of jail.
On July 11, 2023, there was a fire near 29th and Bobolink that the Milwaukee Fire Department had to put out. They saw fires coming from the second floor when they got there. The basement and first floor were cleared out, but they could hear a guy yelling for help, who turned out to be Winters.
But the fire was so strong that firemen couldn’t reach the man. Prosecutors told the local Fox affiliate WITI reported, that the fire was so hot that a firefighter’s face mask melted.
Firefighters got to Winters too late to save him, and they declared him dead when they got there.
A witness told Milwaukee police that he was in his car when he saw flames coming from the second floor and Adams walk from the house to some rocks across the street and sit down. This was based on an arrest document shown by CBS affiliate WDJT.
Police say that when they asked her about what happened, she laughed and said, “I set the fire.” Then she is said to have said, “There’s a blind man in there. That’s what he gets.” Adams was arrested so that police could question him further.
Adams was said to have then said that she set the fire because he had beaten her up before. The lawsuit says she told Winters that they were drinking beer together when he asked her to go get food, but she said no because he was too drunk.
That led to a fight, and Adams said Winters pushed her off a chair. Then she allegedly said she had lit the mattress on fire while he was sleeping. The complaint said Adams told the woman to put out the fire, but she left the house when he called for help.
She was caught by police and taken to jail, where she has been since. Before she took the plea deal, Adams was charged with first-degree reckless murder and setting fires. She will get more than 400 days off for the time she already spent in jail.
His family told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Winters was a former factory worker who had gone legally blind in the past few years. He liked painting and drawing, and even though he had trouble seeing, he kept doing them in the last few years of his life.