Barber Gets Life Sentence for Torching Homeless Man

It's unbelievable to me that anyone can do that to another person.. They should pour gasoline and light him on fire just the same as punishment- skip past our spending tax dollars on him sitting around jail the next 50 years.


LOS ANGELES -- A former barber has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing a mentally ill homeless man by dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire with a road flare in the Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles.

Ben Matthew Martin, 31, pleaded guilty last month to the October 2008 killing of John Robert McGraham, 55, in the 3500 block of West Third Street.

Martin sat with his head bowed during Wednesday's half-hour sentencing hearing in downtown L.A.

"My brother had a life -- he was a human being," Susanne McGraham Paisley, the victim's sister, told the court through sobs. "Even in a state of homelessness, he managed to touch so many lives."

McGraham was mentally ill and lived on the streets, where he was known to locals as a sweet, harmless person. He once worked as a bellman at the Ambassador Hotel, but suffered from depression. Family members repeatedly tried to get him treatment over the years, but were unsuccessful.

Martin was a neighborhood barber who apparently had a grudge against the homeless. He was arrested in January 2009 in Rancho Mirage.

Martin reportedly disliked homeless people lingering near the barber shop where he worked. A co-worker later told police he had seen Martin shout at the homeless to move away from the shop, sometimes striking out at them.

A customer said that he saw Martin on a separate occasion chasing McGraham down 3rd Street, hitting him with a bag of towels and kicking him in the back. The barber yelled, "I don't want to see you around here again," according to the customer.

When the manager of the barber shop learned of the attack, Martin was fired. Three months later, prosecutors said, Martin returned to the area with revenge on his mind.

Carrying a bucket of gasoline and an emergency road flare, he found McGraham standing in the driveway of a parking lot. Martin soaked the homeless man with the gasoline, prosecutors said, then lighted the flare and set him on fire.

As Martin fled, passersby desperately tried to douse the flames, but McGraham, who suffered burns over 90-percent of his body, was burned alive.