INDIANAPOLIS — A woman has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to the 2021 murder of a man found dead in a burning home on the east side of Indianapolis.
Brittany Snelbaker was arrested about three weeks after firefighters found 24-year-old Charles Burgess Jr. dead inside a duplex that had caught fire on East Vermont Street, near Sherman Drive, on Nov. 5, 2021. His death was later ruled a homicide due to multiple traumas.
Snelbaker had also faced a felony arson charge, but that was dismissed with the guilty plea.
With credit for time served, Snelbaker was sentenced to serve 47 years in the Indiana Department of Correction, then three years of home detention. She was also ordered to undergo mental health and substance abuse evaluations.
(NOTE: The video in the player above is from the original report on the fire in November 2021.)