MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A 54-year-old St. Paul man pleaded guilty Friday to lighting his girlfriend’s son on fire last summer.
Curtis Reed pleaded guilty to first-degree assault. He is set to be sentenced on April 12.
The assault occurred last July, when Reed sprayed the then 19-year-old Antoine Willis with lighter fluid and lit him on fire.
Reed had been fighting with Willis’ mother. After Willis intervened in the fight, Reed told him not to go to sleep.
According to Willis, Reed lit him on fire after he dozed off.
“I was asleep, and then there was fire on my head when I woke up,” Willis said. “I took my shirt off and padded my head down. And then I ran out the back door and he was chasing me with a bottle of fluid and kept spraying it on me.”
Willis was treated at Regions Hospital. A medical fund was set up for Willis, however, his mother and uncle were later arrested for allegedly stealing from it.
