Chilling video shows a sick firebug calmly setting a homeless woman on fire — leaving her so severely burned she was intubated and unable to identify her attacker for several weeks, according to police.
The disturbing security camera footage released Wednesday shows a car making a U-turn and then pulling over where a 49-year-old woman was sleeping on a Sacramento street on April 26.
The driver then calmly gets out, holding a canister, and walks over to the sleeping woman — dousing her with an unknown liquid, the clip shows.
Suddenly, the woman erupts into a burst of flames, according to the video. The driver then appears to argue with someone before getting back behind the wheel and peeling off.
The victim suffered severe burns to about one-third of her body — including her face, torso, arms and back — and was intubated at a local hospital for more than two weeks.
She recovered enough to speak to investigators on Tuesday, allegedly identifying her attacker as Jacqueline Popaibarra, 34, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim’s identification has not been released.
Both women knew each other, the sheriff’s office said, without elaborating on what could have motivated the heinous attack.
It also wasn’t immediately clear how Popaibarra set the sleeping woman on fire.
Popaibarra, who is not homeless, even kicked the burning victim before she fled, the sheriff’s office said.
Popaibarra was already in custody of the Sacramento Police Department on an unrelated robbery charge when she was identified as the suspected firebug.
She’s since been charged with assault with a deadly weapon, arson causing great bodily injury and mayhem.
.Her bail was set at $450,000.
