VOLUSIA COUNTY, Florida — A 38-year-old man is facing attempted murder and arson charges after he was accused of beating and strangling his ex-girlfriend early Tuesday morning and setting fire to her bedroom. Bloody and bruised, the victim managed to escape and run to a neighbor’s house in Deltona to summon help. When responding Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the residence on Providence Boulevard, the defendant, Dean Beebe (DOB: 5/5/77), was immediately taken into custody as he walked away from the house while coughing from the smoke.
The victim, a 28-year-old woman, told deputies that she had broken off her relationship with Beebe about two months ago, but was continuing to let him stay at her house temporarily in the hopes that he would be able to save up enough money to move out. Still, she said she feared him because he had been violent in the past. In fact, the victim said Beebe had threatened that if she dated someone else and then they broke up, he would kill the new boyfriend in front of her. Sometime overnight, the two argued after Beebe searched the contents of the victim’s cell phone because he suspected she was dating someone new. The victim eventually went to sleep, but when she woke up in the middle of the night, there was a raging fire in her bedroom and Beebe was punching her in the face and strangling her while saying he was going to kill her. Fearing for her life, the victim ran out of the house to get help.
Deputies were summed to the scene after the Sheriff’s Office was notified about the incident at 12:40 a.m. Tuesday morning. When deputies arrived, smoke was billowing from the house and the victim was visibly shaken, crying and had swelling around her nose and eyes and swelling and abrasions on both of her forearms and neck. Beebe was immediately detained while the Deltona Fire Department responded to extinguish the fire. Deputies and fire investigators learned that Beebe had set a pile of the victim’s clothes on fire in the bedroom. The fire burned so hot that the plastics in the room were melted and the paint on the walls was bubbled. Investigators seized a lighter from the bedroom and a gas can from a bathroom in the house. The knuckles on both of hands bloody, Beebe was taken to Florida Hospital Fish Memorial in Orange City to be checked out for possible smoke inhalation. After he was released from the hospital, Beebe was transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach, where he was initially being held without bond on charges of attempted 1st-degree murder, arson and felony battery.
The victim was treated for her injuries at Florida Hospital DeLand.
