Horrifying video shows shoplifter douse Bay Area store clerk with kerosene then set him ablaze



Surveillance footage has emerged showing a horrific incendiary attack that left a store clerk in California's Bay Area grievously injured.

The victim of the Sept. 22 attack, who identified himself only as Suraj for fear of reprisals, told KPIX-TV that he has seen his share of criminality in the five years he has worked at Appian Food and Liquor in El Sobrante, but nothing quite like this. Now, the mirror will serve as a constant reminder of the lawlessness now affecting much of the Democrat-run state.

Suraj's coworkers warned him ahead of his shift that a serial shoplifter had made multiple trips to the store to steal lighter fluid. Sure enough, the 38-year-old suspect, later identified by the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office as Kendall Burton, returned to the store, apparently ready to once again take advantage of California's Proposition 47, which effectively decriminalized thefts under $950 in 2014.

Suraj can be seen in the surveillance footage confronting the homeless shoplifter while his coworker arms himself with a baseball bat. Before his coworker is able to close the distance and start swinging, the shoplifter douses the victim with lighter fluid then sets him ablaze.

"He just splashed lighter fluid on my face, and I was so scared that moment," he told KPIX. "I tried to cover his hand, but I don’t know. I don’t remember. He just lit the fire on me, you know."

Despite the flames consuming his flesh, Suraj nevertheless managed to get to the bathroom and splash himself with water.

The footage shows the attacker casually resume his thievery before Suraj's coworker finally tees off on him with the baseball bat.

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Suraj survived the attack with second- and third-degree burns all over his face, neck, chest, and shoulder and has been hospitalized at San Francisco’s Saint Francis Memorial Hospital ever since.

The pain is "terrible," he told KPIX, noting that "when we clean the wound, it's like over 10."

"I'm still in a trauma right now, me, my family," added Suraj, who reportedly requires multiple surgeries.

His wife, Sabeena, started a GoFundMe campaign to help their family through Suraj's recovery.

Kendall is being held without bail and faces charges including assault with a deadly weapon, battery, arson, and robbery. It's unclear whether he'll ultimately face justice for his alleged crimes, since Contra Costa County's Democrat district attorney is Diana Becton, a radical leftist whose 2022 campaign received roughly $1 million in funding from George Soros, reported the Daily Mail.

Since Becton first assumed office in 2017, crime has been an issue for the area.

While she rushed to charge protesters who defaced a BLM mural in 2020 with a hate crime, Becton issued internal guidelines in June 2020, encouraging prosecutors to consider whether looters "need[ed]" the stolen goods.

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Parents of severely autistic woman who rotted away for a decade and 'melted' into family couch are re-charged with her murder



The remains of Lacey Ellen Fletcher were found last January "melted" into her parents' living room couch in Slaughter, Louisiana. The shocking discovery of the 36-year-old autistic woman's body, which may have been stuck there for well over a decade in the lead-up to her death, was said by the overseeing coroner to have been "something you make horror movies about."

The victim's parents, Sheila and Clay Fletcher, were indicted on May 2, 2022, for second-degree murder in their daughter's death — shortly after Sheila resigned from her role as town alderman.

Their trial was set to begin last week; however, in May, District Judge Kathryn Jones dismissed the indictments against the couple, citing defective language in the charging affidavits, reported the Advocate.

Following through on his promise, East and West Feliciana Parish District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla has re-charged the 65-year-olds with murder.

D’Aquilla previously underscored that "this case was so horrific. ... You don't treat anybody or animals like that."

What's the background?

TheBlaze previously reported that Lacey was found in a partial state of undress, sitting upright on a couch in her parents' home on Jan. 3, 2022, "covered in feces from head to toe" with "insects all over her body," according to East Feliciana Parish coroner Dr. Ewell Dewitt Bickham III.

Bickham ruled the death a homicide resultant of "acute medical neglect" dating back well over a decade.

This neglect allegedly "led to chronic malnutrition, acute starvation, immobility, acute ulcer formation, osteomyelitis which is bone infection which led finally to sepsis."

Lacey had reportedly not seen a doctor since she was 16.

"The scene was sickening. I've seen some horrible things in my life but nothing like this," said Bickham, a 30-year practicing physician. He estimated that Lacey was likely sitting sunken into a hole she had made in the couch after not moving from it, possibly for years.

"When I first walked in the house, it smelled of feces, fecal material, however you want to put that politely, it stunk. And when I got to the body, the individual was basically sitting in a hole, filled with liquid stool and urine," Bickham told WAFB-TV. "It’s the worst form of medical neglect I’ve ever seen. I don’t know any other adjectives or adverbs to add to that."

According to the Advocate, when East Feliciana Parish sheriff's deputies found the victim, her emaciated body weighed 96 pounds and was infected with COVID-19. Lacey was covered in maggots, ulcers, and other sores. Fecal matter was crushed into her face and across the supermajority of her body.

While Lacey was reportedly diagnosed with "severe" Asperger's and social anxiety, her parents claimed she was "of sound mind to make her own type of decisions" and content to rot away on the couch, right next to Sheila Fletcher's recliner in front of the family television.

"The question on everybody’s mind is, how could they be caretakers living in the house with her and have her get in a condition like that?” said Aquilla. "It’s cruelty to the infirm. We can’t just let it sit."

Bickham told the Daily Mail that when he was presenting the case and showed the pictures to the grand jury, everyone was in utter shock, "Like the clock on the wall never moved again. ... There was complete silence. Some jurors were gasping in horror. Some were staring in disbelief."

WBRZ-TV reported that upon their grand jury indictment for murder charges carrying possible life sentences, the victim's parents turned themselves in and were booked into jail.

One day later, Sheila Fletcher bonded out at $300,000. Clay Fletcher bonded out shortly thereafter.

Bungled indictment

The Fletchers' defense attorney, Steven Moore, filed a motion to quash the indictments early last month, stating that D'Aquilla's office served a different indictment to the defendants than the one filed with the Clerk of Court.

"In sum, the indictment in the record is either a substitute or a different indictment returned by the grand jury," Moore wrote in his motion.

Moore also suggested that the original indictment lacked a signature from the grand jury foreperson as required by law to validate the charging document, reported the Advocate.

According to WAFB, Judge Jones rejected the arguments from the defense that there was no specific intent and that the indictment was not signed by the foreperson, but agreed that the wording had been botched. As a result, she tossed the indictments during a May 30 hearing.

D'Aquilla indicated he'd reindict the Fletchers on June 19, the date their trial was originally scheduled to begin.

Take two

D'Aquilla revived the case and on June 19, brought it before another grand jury, which determined the Fletchers should be tried for second-degree murder in the death of their daughter.

The couple was re-arrested but once again made bond.

D'Aquilla said in a statement, "We will ensure there is justice for Lacey and the public knows that caregivers will be charged for neglecting or abusing a person in their care."

The Fletchers are expected to go on trial this fall.

Woman ‘melted’ to couch; autopsy showed she was eating it, parents out on bond youtu.be

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