MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee man has been charged with intentionally setting a fire that killed a man in a rooming house, prosecutors said.
Jerry Lee Sanders, 57, has been indicted on charges including first-degree murder and aggravated arson in the death of Gregory Fowler, the Shelby County district attorney’s office said Thursday.
Prosecutors said Sanders and Fowler, 54, got into an argument over a lawnmower at a Memphis rooming house last May.
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Sanders then told Fowler to leave the house, but Fowler refused, investigators said. Sanders then doused the kitchen and Fowler’s bedroom door with gasoline, lit a paper towel and threw it on the floor, prosecutors said.
Firefighters removed Fowler from the burning house, but he died later at a hospital of smoke inhalation, authorities said. A woman who was inside the house escaped unharmed.
Online court records did not show a lawyer for Sanders, who was in jail on bond Thursday.
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