Keavy woman indicted for setting husband on fire with gasoline

Vera Wooten is charged with assault for allegedly setting her husband on fire.

A Keavy woman was indicted Friday on an assault charge stemming from an incident during which she allegedly set fire to her husband.

A Laurel County grand jury indicted Vera Rosanne Wooton, aka Vera Rosanne Ingram, on one count of first-degree assault.

Wooton was arrested hours after the incident that occurred Augu. 7 on Woodland Court off of Paris Karr Road in which John Wooton suffered severe burns to over 50 percent of his body.

“He is burned from his knees to his neck,” said Laurel County Sheriff’s Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, the department’s public affairs officer.

“He is still in critical condition,” Acciardo added Tuesday.

According to police, the couple had been arguing after Vera Wooton found John Wooton in a car with another woman that evening and somehow John Wooton had been doused with gasoline.

After a verbal confrontation between the women, police say the other woman drove away, but seconds later, she saw John Wooton erupt in flames.

The woman called 911.

“We have an emergency, the woman down the street just set her husband on fire,” the woman told the dispatcher adding seconds later that the flames were reaching his head and that he was running around.

Remnants of John Wooton’s clothing, including his shoes and the smoldering shirt, were left lying outside the trailer that neighbors said the couple was refurbishing.

Acciardo said it was Vera Wooton that drove her husband to Saint Joseph – London Hospital.

John Wooton was later airlifted to the burn center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Deputies located Vera Wooton at Saint Joseph and brought her to the sheriff’s office to conduct an interview.

“The gist of the information that she gave to deputies was that it was an accident,” Acciardo said previously.

Vera Wooton pleaded not guilty to the charge at her arraignment Friday in Laurel Circuit Court. She is scheduled to return to court at 9 a.m. on Sept. 25 for a pretrial conference.

Bond in the case has been set at $100,000 cash.

Vera Wooton remains in the Laurel County Correctional Center.

Under Kentucky law, first-degree assault is a Class B felony, carrying a potential prison sentence of 10 to 20 years.