The man accused of dousing his pregnant girlfriend with a flammable liquid and setting her on fire has been found not guilty.
A jury found Laquinn Phillips not guilty on all charges Thursday. Phillips had been facing attempted murder, arson and other charges.
On Sept. 6, 2017, Prince George's County police officers and firefighters found Andrea Grinage with critical burns on a large part of her body while responding to a fire at her Capitol Heights apartment.
Grinage told police Phillips doused her with a flammable liquid inside her apartment and set her on fire.
“It’s still hard to believe they found him not guilty on all counts,” Grinage said.
Phillips' defense attorney, J. Wyndal Gordon, said it was a "malicious prosecution." He argued there was no DNA or other evidence connecting Phillips to the incident and there were many holes and conflicts in the Grinage's story. Gordon maintained she set herself on fire.
“My suspicions was that she set herself on fire, and the reason why I say that is because there was no gasoline found in the bathtub, there was no DNA, no fingerprints, none of her stories matched up,” Gordon said. “Her medical records didn’t even match up with the things that she was saying.”
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Grinage sustained burns to more than 70 percent of her body, but her daughter, Journey, survived the attack and had to be delivered seven weeks premature.
Grinage said she fears for her safety after the verdict.
“Now it leaves me, like, what about my safety?” Grinage said. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Grinage said that Phillips was abusive in their relationship, but she did not expect the attack.
"I did not see that coming," she told News4 last year.
She had filed for a protective order against Phillips months earlier.
Phillips, who had no prior convictions at the time of his arrest, had been recently accepted to be a firefighter with the D.C. Fire Department.
A second suspect was arrested and charged in this case, but the state’s attorney now says they will reevaluate that case and decide whether to move forward.
