Florida Man Kills Woman For Evicting Him And Sets House On Fire

A Florida man has been arrested and charged with murder of an elderly woman and setting her house on fire, police said.

Police responded to a call about a mentally challenged person attacking an elderly woman at a home at 520 Cannon St. in Daytona Beach on Sunday around 1 p.m. According to investigators, 33-year-old Deandre Anderson attacked 70-year-old Viola Miller at her home and set the house on fire after she told him to move out because she was frightened of him.

After the 911 call, responding officers, on arrival at the scene, saw smoke coming out of the house. When they tried to open the door, they found the inside of the house engulfed in flames. They could not enter the property because of the fire and had to wait until firefighters reached the scene and put it out, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported Tuesday.

Once inside the home, police found a badly burned body of an elderly woman. Alongside the body, a pair of scissors and a machete were also found, the report said.

While working the crime scene, investigators found that the home had surveillance cameras. On reviewing the footage, the officers saw Anderson walking away from the home, according to the report.

As per the police report, Anderson tried to flee but was caught.

A witness who lived in the house along with Anderson and the now-deceased elderly woman told police that Miller had given her and Anderson 30 days to move out of the house.

On Monday, Anderson appeared before a judge on a first-degree murder charge. "We just know that he was living with her at the time but she had kicked him out," Miller’s sister Terasa Scott was quoted as saying by WESH 2. The victim’s niece, Bri Lewis, stated: "Who takes someone's life that raised you? What type of person is that? That's a devil." Miller’s family members remembered her as a loving aunt and grandmother.

This isn’t Anderson’s first brush with the law. In 2019, he was sentenced to 13-months in prison for threatening to kill his mother and also physically assaulting his then-girlfriend.

The mother told police at the time that Anderson suffers from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. She said that he suffers from hallucinations when he stops taking his medications.