Lowell man found guilty of murder for setting his wife on fire in 2021

A Lowell man who doused his wife in gasoline and set her on fire as she took a bath will serve a life sentence in prison for the 2021 slaying.

A Middlesex Superior Court jury found Santos Lebron De Los Santos, 44, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Celeste Marte Lebron, 49. He will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan’s office announced Friday.

Prosecutors said De Los Santos was driven by suspected infidelity on March 31, 2021, when he followed his wife into the bathroom, covered her in gasoline, and lit her on fire as she sat in the tub.

Badly burned, Marte Lebron made it out of the couple’s Varnum Street home with the help of a neighbor, according to the DA’s office. 

“As a neighbor frantically tried to help Ms. Lebron, who was suffering from horrific burns, [De Los Santos] tried to prohibit that man’s helping and pushed to get her back inside the apartment where he had attempted to incinerate her,” Ryan said in a statement. 

Marte Lebron suffered burns on approximately 90% of her body and died from her injuries weeks later. 

De Los Santos told investigators “widely conflicting stories” about how the fire started, alternately writing it off as a joke, a scare tactic, or the result of faulty electrical work, Ryan said. De Los Santos also attempted to conceal the cause of the fire by hiding the gas can he used in the back of his truck.

However, Marte Lebron told the neighbor who helped her that her husband lit her on fire after hurling accusations of infidelity, and forensic testing showed De Los Santos’s role in starting the deadly blaze, prosecutors said. 

According to Ryan, De Los Santos had a history of using threats and violence to isolate his wife and keep her from reporting him to the police.

“With this verdict, the jury placed responsibility squarely on the defendant for the horror that he inflicted on Ms. Lebron,” Ryan said.

Abby Patkin

Staff Writer

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.

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