LEE COUNTY, Fla. (TCN) — A 23-year-old man is being held without bond after police say he shot his mother and set her on fire.
According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, emergency services responded to a residence on July 25 when George Beemer called and said he was having chest pain. He was transported to the hospital for an evaluation. Soon after emergency responders left, another call was placed involving the same address to report that the house was on fire.
The fire department extinguished the blaze and found the severely burned body of a woman inside the home. Her name was not released by law enforcement, but the Fort Myers News-Press identified her as 57-year-old Elizabeth Beemer.
An investigation determined George Beemer allegedly shot Elizabeth Beemer and then set the house on fire. He was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, first-degree arson, and abuse of a dead human body, according to the sheriff’s office.
WINK reports Beemer allegedly told detectives he killed his mother and then set the house on fire “because she wanted to be cremated.” He allegedly said he had years of pent-up anger toward his mother because she had mistreated him and molested him, and he shot her before pouring gasoline on the body and setting it alight.
According to a friend of Elizabeth Beemer, her son’s allegations about his mother are false. WINK reports the friend said, “There’s absolutely no way. … No, no, absolutely never, never, no. I can’t buy it. I will never buy it. He’s using it as a defense mechanism to think that there’s any remote chance that this was justified.”
“This is one of the most horrific acts of violence imaginable. The cruelty in this case is beyond comprehension,” Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said.
On July 29, a judge ordered Beemer held without bond, per the News-Press. The investigation is ongoing.
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