BALTIMORE, MARYLAND: A Maryland woman has been charged with attempted murder after she reportedly set fire to her house when another woman was inside and then sat in a lawn chair to watch it burn.
Gail Metwally, 47, was captured on camera watching her house in Cecil County, Elkton, about 50 miles north of Baltimore, getting engulfed in flames about 1.15 pm last Thursday. Metwally was seen seated on the lawn with a book on her lap and watching the inferno billow, clad in a white tank top and sun hat.
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Who is Gail Metwally?
After "being confined elsewhere for mental health problems", Metwally had recently returned to the Cherry Lane house, said Blenda Holbrook, 52, the woman who was rescued from the fire. She told WMAR that repeated pleas to authorities in recent months for them to address her ongoing behavioral issues had gone ignored. According to a press release from the Office of the State Fire Marshall, witnesses told investigators that Metwally lit several fires in the house before sitting in the chair.
The footage, which has gone viral on social media, shows Metwally standing on the porch of the home in question, arguing with a man while carrying some kind of stick or pole. The argument got physical “Oh, shit,” said an anonymous narrator recording the incident from across the street. “He said he goin’ beat the shit out of her. Oh my god.” The man threw water at the woman, following which the video cut to Metwally arguing with another woman in a pink shirt.
'Sitting there chillin', watching house go up in flames'
Footage cut to the beginning of the fire, when the narrator told another man he was with: “Dude, she’s about to burn the fucking house down, dude,” he told a man he was with. It cut to the woman sitting on an easy chair in the lawn wearing a sun hat and watching the flames take hold.
"She just f**king lit the trash can on fire!" the man says, adding, "Oh my f**king God, this is not happening right now! She lit the f**king house! Oh my God! I cannot actually believe my eyes. I cannot actually believe it, and she's sitting there just chillin' — watching the house go up in flames!" He continued: "Like yeah, I'm watching the s–t go down! Oh, my God, this is, this is now turned into a serious, serious thing!"
'Almost burned to death'
The lawn chair and the burning house were visible in a photo released by the Maryland State Fire Marshal, but there was no suspect at the scene. Metwally, they said, had walked away. After seeing her in the field, Cecil County deputies arrested her, they said, according to Law and Crime.
According to officials, a total of four people, including Metwally, lived in the home but two of them were not there during the incident, reported the Daily Mail. Motives for the arson were not immediately clear, but Pat Bernal, Holbrook's sister, claims that someone threw a trash can on the stairs, blocking her exit. “She almost burned to death in that house, and I’m just really thankful she’s okay,” Bernal said to the News Outlet, “When she was talking to me, she said, ‘Pat, it burned my hair. It singed my hair, and he lost everything,” she said referring to the man from whom she rented a room.
She added: "During this COVID, they were renting a room from him from what I understand, and he couldn't put her out, because of COVID, but what does it take?" "I'm just really thankful to the two guys that helped her out of that basement, because I don't think she'd be here today if they hadn't helped her," Bernal said of her sister's rescuers.
Metwally faces charges of attempted murder in the first and second degrees, first-degree arson, and first-degree assault, as well as two counts of first-degree intentional burning, malicious destruction of property, and reckless endangerment. In Cecil County, she is facing five misdemeanor charges of malicious damage of property for an incident on April 10, according to court records.
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