Woman burned sleeping boyfriend to death by dousing sofa in petrol then shutting door when he shouted 'hot, hot'

‘I hate me for what I did. I can never bring him back’

Gina Virgilio appears in Anchorage Superior Court, Friday, Oct. 4, 2019, where her sentencing began after pleading guilty to killing her boyfriend (AP)

A woman who poured petrol on her boyfriend as he slept after his birthday party, set him on fire and closed the door as he burned to death will serve 60 years in prison.

Michael Gonzales was sleeping in the early hours after celebrating turning 24 when partner Gina Virgilio, who was 25 at the time, attacked him in the Alaska home they shared.

Virgilio had walked a quarter of a mile from the house in Anchorage to the nearest petrol station with a canister – which she topped up with $5 offered to her by an attendant as she could not afford to pay.

When she returned to the home, she stared at her boyfriend for a while before dousing the sofa and the carpet around him, the court heard.

Creating a trail to the apartment’s only doorway, she went on to post lit envelopes through the door, setting fire to the home.

When she saw him get up, yelling “hot, hot”, she shut the door and ran.

A post mortem confirmed Mr Gonzales had died from smoke inhalation.

Now, seven years on from the incident, she has been found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison, with 39 suspended after entering a plea deal. She also faces 10 years of probation after her sentence is finished.

Handing down the sentence, Superior Court Judge Michael Wolverton said the crime was as horrific an offence as he had ever dealt with – and that while Virgilio was not a monster and had shown remorse, she had done a "horrific, horrific, thing".

Ahead of her sentencing the now-32-year-old murderer said mental illness had driven her to the crime, adding that she was frustrated because she could not even put a motive to the killing.

"I hate me for what I did. I can never bring him back,” she told the court, adding “You can't make sense out of a mind that makes no sense".

Virgilio’s family said her mental state had begun to decline when she turned 20 and began taking arrange of drugs including Oxytocin and cocaine.

She eventually moved on to injecting meth, and disappeared on a two-week, drug-fuelled bender five months before her crime took place.

It was then she began to slip into a state of drug-induced psychosis, becoming obsessed with fir and, in one instance, attempting to kill her child.

The infant was taken away from her shortly before she murdered her partner. In another incident, her brother Reginald Carney took her to the hospital after growing concerned she would take her own life.

She was released with a prognosis of drug-induced psychosis, and was told the condition would pass.

At the time of her killing, she was found to have no drugs or alcohol in her system.

Virgilio added: “Everything that ever happened with my son, with Michael, it was from my mind. When you believe something, you act on those things."

Outside the courtroom, the victim's youngest brother was relieved with the sentence and happy to have the seven-year ordeal over.

"I believe as long as she gets out at a late enough age to where she's not a danger to me, my family or society, I'm OK with it," Austine Gonzalez said.

Now receiving treatment, Virgilio told the court her life and mental state had returned to normal, and that she was engaged with a faith-based therapeutic programme at her prison as well as a running programme.

Additional reporting by AP