A woman who poured gasoline on the couch where her sleeping boyfriend lay and then shut the door after seeing him jump up and yell "hot, hot" will spend 60 years in prison for first-degree murder.
Saying it represents as horrific an offense as he's ever dealt with, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Michael Wolverton on Monday sentenced Gina Virgilio to 99 years with 39 years suspended. She also was sentenced to 10 years of probation after her release for the 2012 death of Michael Gonzalez.
Virgilio, 32, sat with her face buried in her hands as Wolverton announced the sentence. He said she was not a monster and has shown remorse but did a "horrific, horrific, thing."
Before sentencing Virgilio indicated to the judge that mental illness drove her to this act.
"I hate me for what I did. I can never bring him back," she said.
There was no motive for the murder, which she called frustrating.
"You can't make sense out of a mind that makes no sense," Virgilio said. "Everything that ever happened with my son, with Michael, it was from my mind. When you believe something, you act on those things."
She said once she has come back to normal, her life picked up right where it was before she got into drugs. She's active with a faith-based therapeutic program at the women's prison, and she is setting records in the running program.
On the night of June 7, 2012, Virgilio and Gonzalez held a party for Gonzalez's 24th birthday. While he passed out or fell asleep on the couch early the next morning after drinking beer, she found a gas can and walked a quarter mile to the nearest gas station. When she got there, she only had 53 cents in her pocket, so the clerk gave her $5 for gas.
Virgilio then walked back to the apartment, stared at her boyfriend for a while and doused the couch, the carpet in front of it and the area in front of the apartment's only doorway with gasoline.
She lit mail on fire and tossed it inside. When she saw Gonzalez get up and yell "hot, hot" she shut the door and fled. He died from smoke inhalation and severe burns.
Woman gets 60 years in boyfriend's burning death
A woman who killed her sleeping boyfriend by setting the couch on fire is set to serve 60 years in prison
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Her child was removed from her after she attempted to kill the child.