| Page 2 of 2 < |
'He Said He Wanted to Fry Me Like Crisco Grease'
Yvette Cade's sisters Shereen Jackson, left, and Marla Cade, right, leave Prince George's County Circuit Court with Renina Daniels. Roger B. Hargrave is charged with attempted murder in an attack on Yvette Cade in October.
(By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
|
About 9:30 a.m. that day, Cade was at her sales job at a T-Mobile store in Clinton, helping a customer. Hargrave walked in carrying a Sprite bottle.
"He said he loved me," Cade testified. Cade said she didn't respond. When Hargrave dumped the liquid -- gasoline, prosecutors said -- from the bottle onto her head and shoulders, she ran out a back door, Hargrave in pursuit.
In the parking lot, Hargrave caught her, stomping on her right foot with his Timberland boot, she said.
"What happened?" Wagner-Stewart asked.
"I was on fire," Cade replied. Cade said she called for help as she ran back into the store through the front door. She made it to a back-room sink, where she put a sprayer over her head and turned on the water. A co-worker and a bystander also helped, getting her on the ground and rolling her to put out the flames, according to trial testimony.
Cade, who is about 4 feet 11 inches tall, said she was hospitalized for 91 days after the attack. She goes to physical therapy three times a week and takes 15 pills daily.
In his opening statement, State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said Cade has undergone 15 surgeries and faces more. She suffered third-degree burns over half of her body and is permanently disfigured, Ivey said.
Hargrave's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Gary Ward, declined to give an opening statement. During his cross-examination of Cade, he asked her whether Hargrave sounded as if he'd been drinking when he called her a few hours before the attack, signaling the possibility of an impaired capacity defense. Cade replied that she didn't know whether Hargrave had been drinking.
The case created controversy for District Court Judge Richard A. Palumbo, who on Sept. 19 had dismissed a protective order that Cade had obtained against Hargrave.
Through his attorney, Palumbo said he had intended to keep the protective order in place and blamed its dismissal on a clerical error. The chief District Court judge for Prince George's disagreed, saying there had been no clerical error.
Mobile
Email
