Woman said she was on ‘mission’ to kill when she torched house ‘filled with demons’

 

Before dawn, police say she later told them, she heard people walking down the hallway in a Pennsylvania boarding house.
She told them the home was “filled with demons.”
She told them the residents were into drugs and sex.
She told them she had to “fulfill a mission” to kill.

Latoya Lyerly, 42, told investigators that in the early hours of Wednesday morning she crumpled up some paper coffee strainers and set them ablaze on chair on the first floor in the home on a scrappy street in Pittsburgh. According to police, Lyerly said she then lit a couch on fire, grabbed her coat and walked out the door.
The account comes from a criminal complaint, which accuses Lyerly of setting a fire that killed homeowner Derlyn Vance along with two others, Calvin Turner and Gerald Johnson. All three died from smoke inhalation and burns to their bodies, according to the medical examiner.
Lyerly has been arrested and charged with aggravated arson and criminal homicide, among other things, according to court records.
      I knew she was frustrated — that she was at the end of her rope,” Argie Lyerly, who said her son was once married Latoya Lyerly, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
She added: “She was just heartbroken by a lot of things. I’m sorry she snapped like that.”

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Authorities said Lyerly had been struggling for a while.
An offender with Lyerly’s name and birth date was charged late last year with endangering welfare of a child, according to court records, and is awaiting trial.
Argie Lyerly told the Post-Gazette that Argie’s son, Eugene, was married to Latoya Lyerly and that the two had a child. She said Lyerly has a second child through another relationship but that Argie had permanent custody.
        The newspaper cited Pittsburgh police saying that in November, Latoya Lyerly had jumped from a car and taken her child. She was arrested and charged in the incident, according to the newspaper.
Police would not confirm any details to The Post.
Police did say Lyerly told them she had recently been evicted from a YMCA in a nearby town and had taken up residence in the house about three weeks before the fire, according to court documents.
She said she had no money, so Vance, the homeowner whom she called “Dad,” paid her to cook and clean, the documents stated.
“Lyerly stated that on the night before the fire, she was home cooking spaghetti and hamburgers,” according to the criminal complaint. At some point, the two began to argue because he told her “the radio volume was too high.”
Things escalated, according to the complaint, and Lyerly said she told him “she was going to burn the ‘f——‘ house down.”

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Police and firefighters responded to the scene Wednesday morning when a fire alarm in a neighboring home began to wail.
Firefighters found two victims on the second floor in the boarding house and another on the third floor, police said in a statement.
Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones told NBC affiliate WPXI that it was an emotional case for the first-responders.
“We hurt just like the neighborhood hurts,” he told the news station. “Just like the family hurts. We take it personally. We don’t like losing people.”
Not long after the incident, police said, Lyerly returned home.
During an interview with investigators, Lyerly first denied playing a part in the fire, according to court documents. She later told them she unintentionally started it when she lit a cigarette on her bed, the documents stated.
“Lyerly stated she became scared, at which time, she ran out the of the house, without notifying anybody inside the residence or calling 911,” according to the criminal complaint.
Police said she eventually admitted to investigators that she set the fire, left the house and locked the front door behind her.
After the blaze, neighbors and those who knew the homeowner said that over the years he had tried to help people through tough times.
Michelle McIntosh, who said she was Vance’s sister, told the Post-Gazette that he was “a good man.”
“He tried to help out a lot of people,” she told the newspaper. “He just didn’t like to see people down and out.”
McIntosh told CBS affiliate KDKA she was still in shock.
“I just can’t believe that someone would do something like that and he was trying to help them,” she told the news station. “But you know, the world is full of evil.”
She added: “I don’t like the act that she did, but the word of God says that we have to forgive. I’m praying for her family as well. I just want everyone to pray for our family as we go through this.
“It’s really hard.”