By Dillon Carr
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
PENN HILLS, Pa. — Leigh Ann Sepelyak – accused of setting her boyfriend on fire at their Penn Hills residence and dousing the flames with urine – told the Tribune-Review Monday she is innocent.
“I woke up to it,” Sepelyak said. “I put the fire out, I saved his life. They (police) won’t listen to me -- it’s frustrating.”
She said she will try to fight her case in court once she has an attorney.
“That’s the only way I can do this,” Sepelyak said.
Sepelyak had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing Monday before Penn Hills District Justice Anthony Deluca Jr., but it was moved to July 31 because she does not yet have an attorney.
Sepelyak is charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, arson and related charges stemming from a July 8 incident at a house on Lime Hollow Road.
According to police, Sepelyak, 38, and her boyfriend, Grady Spencer III, 31, had an argument, she poured gasoline on his lower body and used a match to set him aflame. She then allegedly doused the flames using a bucket containing urine.
Tribune-Review reported last week that Sepelyak’s mother and brother, who live on the main floor of the home, took Spencer to UPMC Mercy early Sunday morning on July 9, and staff there called Penn Hills police.
According to the criminal complaint of the incident, police officials heard Sepelyak’s brother, Thaddeus Sepelyak, “proclaim ‘she lit him up’” at the hospital, which led to her arrest.
When she described the morning of the incident, Sepelyak said the arresting officer held her in an interrogation room for several hours with her hands behind her back.
“My arms went numb,” she said. “They kept questioning me, trying to get me to say I did it.”
Sepelyak’s mother and brother, who live on the main floor of the home, took Spencer to UPMC Mercy, and staff there called Penn Hills police.
Spencer told the Tribune-Review last week the charges are false and that he accidentally spilled gasoline on himself and carelessly set himself on fire when he lit a cigarette. He was initially hospitalized at UPMC-Mercy, but has been released and was present during Monday morning’s preliminary hearing. Sepelyak said she was released from jail Saturday.
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