Homeless woman gets 3 years in killing

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 | 9:52 a.m.

A Las Vegas homeless woman was sentenced to three years in prison Monday for setting a fellow homeless person on fire in March, killing him.

"I'm sorry that it happened," Phyllis Gray, 55, sobbed moments before District Judge Donald Mosley sentenced her under the terms of a plea agreement reached in June.

Gray must serve at least 14 months before becoming eligible for parole. The victim was known only by "Lewis."

Gray pleaded the equivalent of no contest to involuntary manslaughter, thus avoiding a possible second-degree murder conviction and life sentence.

According to prosecutors, an eyewitness saw Gray, her hands and clothes singed, standing near the burning man on March 6.

The witness, Turner Rice, told police that an inebriated Gray complained that the victim had drunk her beer.

Rice said he asked homeless people standing nearby to hold on to Gray while he called 911, but when fire crews arrived she was gone.

Police found Gray on Fremont Street a short time later drinking beer and highly intoxicated.

Deputy Public Defender Scott Coffee told Mosley that Gray doesn't remember the incident, but is as "remorseful as any client" he's ever had. Her hands were burned, he said, because she tried to help the victim.

Once out of prison, Coffee said Gray intends to leave the state, join her sister and try to get on with her life.