Woman enters no contest plea in burning death

Kim Smith

Thursday, June 13, 2002 | 9:30 a.m.

A Las Vegas woman who set a homeless man on fire because he finished off her beer could spend the next three years in prison after pleading the equivalent of no contest Wednesday to involuntary manslaughter.

As a result of a plea agreement worked out between Chief Deputy District Attorney David Barker and Deputy Public Defender Scott Coffee, Phyllis Gray, 55, will have to serve 14 months in prison before she is eligible for parole.

Had the case gone to trial, Barker said a witness would have testified that he was walking behind the Cox Cable building on Martin Luther King Boulevard March 6 when he noticed a man on fire and Gray standing nearby.

The witness, Turner Rice, told police that an inebriated Gray was singed herself and complained that the victim had drank her beer, Barker said.

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.

Barker said police found Gray, who was also homeless, on Fremont Street a short time later drinking beer and highly intoxicated.

The victim was taken to University Medical Center where he died several hours later.

Police have been unable to identify the victim, Barker said. Homeless people in the area knew him as "Lewis."

Gray, who told District Judge Donald Mosley she is college-educated, will be formally sentenced Aug. 5.

In exchange for her plea agreement, a second-degree murder charge will be dismissed.