MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A 46-year-old woman faces arson and attempted murder charges after police said she set a man’s northwest Miami-Dade apartment on fire after he allowed her to take a shower Sunday afternoon.
According to a Miami-Dade police report, the victim told police that he regularly allowed Maria Dawson, who lives on the streets of Miami, to take showers at his apartment in the 2400 block of Northwest 63rd Street in the Gladeview area.
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The apartment building is part of a low-income housing complex owned by Miami-Dade County.
At around 1 p.m. Sunday, Dawson arrived to shower at the man’s apartment, police said.
The victim told police that he noticed Dawson leaving the apartment, but didn’t talk to her or follow her because he was busy cooking food.
According to the report, after a few minutes, he began to smell smoke and ran to his bedroom to find heavy smoke coming from the under the locked door.
After forcing his way inside, the man told police he saw his closet ablaze, with flames originating from a pile of clothes on the floor.
Police wrote that he unsuccessfully tried putting out the fire with a garden hose.
As firefighters put out the fire, which caused significant damage to the unit, Miami-Dade police officers received a report of a naked woman in the area, the report states.
They then found Dawson and took her into custody, noting that she “had an altered state of mind due to heavy drug use and (claimed) she had not slept in 17 days,” police wrote.
Police arrested Dawson and took her to Jackson Memorial Hospital for a wrist injury. Officers later took her to jail.