Manhunt After Woman Burned Alive In NY Lift

Police are hunting a man who burned a woman to death by ambushing her in a lift, spraying her with a flammable liquid and then setting her alight - in an attack caught on CCTV.

He entered the elevator dressed as a pest controller, wearing gloves, with a protective mask on his head and a container on his back in Brooklyn, New York.

He then went to the fifth floor and lay in wait for his victim, Delores Gillespie, who was returning home from shopping.

The attacker is reported to have first glued shut the locks on the woman's apartment and then doused the lift door with accelerant.

As she opened it, the man sprayed her in the face, then covered her from head to toe with what an official said was an accelerant.

Ms Gillespie, 64, crouched down and threw her hands up to her face, as shopping bags dangled from her arms.

Having cornered the woman in the lift, the attacker then ignited a Molotov cocktail - a wine bottle filled with accelerant with a rag stuffed in its neck.

And suddenly the video went white as the woman was set on fire using the bottle's wick.

The man, who appeared to be in his 40s, then threw the bottle inside the lift, after crouching behind the door "as if he was anticipating an explosion," one policeman said.

Two surveillance cameras were filming the attack as he again sprayed Ms Gillespie's burning body with the ignitable liquid before fleeing down the stairs in the Prospect Heights area.

"I've never seen anything like this, and I've been doing this a long time," a detective was quoted as saying in the New York Daily News.

"It's horrific," said Ben Olson, 37, who lives on the sixth floor. "I can't believe it's true."

Police have appealed to the public to help them identify the suspect and have released still images of him.

New York City police spokesman Paul Browne said: "It was apparent he knew she was on the elevator."

Mr Browne would not comment on the motive in the killing, but said the suspect knew his victim.