'I have to live like this forever': Valley woman set on fire prepares to face her attacker 9 years later
LEMOORE, Calif. (KFSN) -- A South Valley woman who set her roommate on fire in 2011 is up for parole.
Chasety Reynolds will have her hearing on Tuesday morning at the Central California woman's facility near Chowchilla after having served just a few years of her own prison sentence.
The survivor of the attack spoke to Action News about why she's worried about the hearing.
Victoria De La Fuentes of Lemoore says she's felt like a prisoner in her own body ever since Reynolds set her on fire, burning more than half of her body.
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Now she's reliving the nightmare.
"After all these years and what she did for me, I have to see her again and I don't know if I'm ready for that," says De La Fuentes.
Reynolds was sentenced in 2012, over a year after she poured gasoline on De La Fuentes and lit her on fire while watching her burn in the garage.
Since then, De La Fuente says her life hasn't been the same.
She's had more than twenty surgeries and lost her right eye.
"I have to live like this forever, my children have to see me like this forever," she says.
De La Fuentes says she rarely leaves her home to avoid the stares, causing her to miss special moments, like her family's graduations, basketball games, and vacations.
"My kids threw me in the car and took me to the coast. That is the best memory I will ever have because they're so limited," she says.
De La Fuentes says to cope, she depends on her family as well as her dogs
She sometimes turns to the virtual world for an escape from reality.
The parole hearing is at the Central California Women's Prison in Chowchilla.
De La Fuentes will be there and though she's forgiven Reynolds, she won't ever forget the life that's been taken from her.
