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The victim identified her boyfriend as the one who set her on fire just hours before she died Tuesday morning.
By SARAH SCHWEITZER
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 4, 1999
TAMPA -- At 10 a.m. Tuesday, Johnny Harrington Jr., the man accused of setting his girlfriend on fire because she would not smoke crack cocaine with him, was to have gone before a judge to ask that his bail be reduced from $40,000.
But at 9:45 a.m., a phone call from Tampa General Hospital put an end to the hearing before it started. Gwendolyn Bell, Harrington's girlfriend, had died.
In a declaration hours before she died, police said, Bell affirmed that Harrington had indeed set her on fire. Armed with her statement, police swiftly charged Harrington of 8432 Chevalier Ave. with first-degree murder.
Bell, 46, a nurse at University Community Hospital, had third-degree burns on nearly 65 percent of her body early July 25 after Harrington doused her with lamp oil and set fire to her after she refused to smoke crack cocaine with him, police said. Shortly after striking the match, Harrington had a change of heart and began beating the flames leaping off Bell's clothes with his hands. He later drove her to St. Joseph's Hospital, which transferred her to Tampa General's burn unit.
Told by doctors that Bell likely would not live to testify at Harrington's trial, police interviewed her at the hospital Monday. There she told Detective Aubrey Black that Harrington had been her assailant.
Police said Bell and Harrington had had a sporadic relationship since 1986. Many members of Bell's family gathered at her mother's house Tuesday and spoke about her life. She had been a nurse at University Community Hospital for many years, working in the field of phlebotomy. Bell had one son and of late had been staying at her mother's home.
Hillsborough Sheriff's records list one previous arrest for Harrington. April 28, 1992, he was charged with aggravated battery and great bodily harm. The disposition of that charge wasn't available Tuesday.