A woman died Thursday morning nearly two months after her boyfriend poured gasoline on her and set her on fire in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side.
Stephanie Smith, 52, showed up at Stroger Hospital on Aug. 9 complaining of chest pains, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Doctors discovered third-degree burns all over her torso.
Smith told investigators that her boyfriend had poured gasoline on her and lit her on fire sometime on Aug. 6 in the 12200 block of South Morgan, authorities said. She refused to give investigators his name or any further information at the time. The attack was being investigated as an aggravated domestic battery.
It was not immediately clear Friday afternoon whether detectives have since identified a suspect or made an arrest in the case, police said.
Smith, who lived in the same block where the attack occurred, was pronounced dead at the hospital at 5:57 a.m. Thursday, the medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy Friday found she died from complications of thermal injuries suffered in the gasoline fire and her death was ruled a homicide.
