Wife Sets Sleeping Husband on Fire With Gasoline, Say Police

A North Carolina wife accused by police of setting her sleeping husband on fire has been charged with assault and attempted murder, reported Greenville-Spartanburg area news media, but there were no details on what led to the alleged attack. 

Lashawn Stevens Hardy, 44, of Union, was being held without bail at the Union County Detention Center after she was arrested Saturday, reported WYFF-TV.

Her husband, DeWayne Hardy, was admitted into the Union Medical Center with second-degree burns to his neck and back and later transported by helicopter to a burn center in Augusta, Georgia.

According to the Spartanburg Herald Journal, DeWayne Hardy told Union County deputies that his wife poured gasoline on him and lit him on fire while he was sleeping. Authorities found burned bed sheets and a mattress when they arrived at the home, noted WYFF-TV.

The Herald Journal said Lashawn Stevens Hardy was also charged with second-degree arson.

According to the nonprofit organization Safe Horizon, men are victims of nearly three million physical assaults in the United States connected to domestic violence.  

"Intimate partner violence is a serious, preventable public health problem that affects millions of Americans," advises the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. "The term 'intimate partner violence' describes physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse. This type of violence can occur among heterosexual or same-sex couples and does not require sexual intimacy."

The CDC said one in four women and one in seven men aged 18 and older in the United States have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Nearly, 14 percent of women and 3.54 percent of men have been injured as a result of intimate partner violence.

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