Aug 19, 2008 10:09 pm US/Central
Elderly Landlord Set On Fire On South Side
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A 77-year-old Chicago man was the victim of a horrific crime – someone doused him with gasoline and set him on fire.
Harlan Hayes, the landlord of the building in which he was attacked on South Ellis Avenue in Woodlawn, is in critical condition. Police say a former tenant is the prime suspect.
"My brother was a good brother," Charlene Hayes said. "And we're just devastated."
Harlan Hayes answered his door sometime around 3 a.m. Tuesday. That's when investigators believe a former tenant threw gasoline on Hayes and tossed a match at him.
"He was a very kind and gentle person," Charlene Hayes said. "I can't even know how they could have gotten that angry with him."
"We're prayin'. Hopin' he'll pull out of it," Brandon Hayes, Harlan Hayes's grandson, said. "I'm angry. I'm shocked."
Relatives say Hayes was able to get next door where a neighbor called 911.
Neighbors call Hayes a generous landlord, who'd helped a woman by allowing her family to stay here as tenants. But neighbors say her son may have been caught selling drugs at the building.
"Harlan didn't mess with that kind of stuff and he didn't let that kind of stuff be in his building," said Hayes's friend Ruby West.
Friends believe the fire could have been a crime of revenge.
"He did tell me that the family was moving. I did not know that he had asked the family to move," said Hayes's friend Connie West.
Another friend, Rev. Leon Finney, Jr., said, "For someone out of rage to deliberately and consciously plan… I mean this guy had to have planned…"
Finney helps fight violence in the area and has known Hayes for some 30 years. He said he admires Hayes for his work to improve the community.
So does Carla Cosey, who said Hayes helped her kick a drug habit 10 years ago.
"He would encourage me that everything was going to be OK and that I was to hold on to God's unchanging hand," Cosey said.
Police are still looking for a man in his 20s who used to live in the building.
Hayes remains in critical condition at the University of Chicago Medical Center with burns over more than 85 percent of his body.
CBS 2's Pamela Jones and Dana Kozlov contributed to this report.
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