Man gets 12 years in prison after he set woman on fire
A San Antonio man is awaiting transfer to prison after he was sentenced to 12 years for dousing his pregnant girlfriend with alcohol and setting her on fire in 2019.
Bryan Hoover was 39 when he was arrested on an aggravated assault charge. Court records show he fought with his then-girlfriend, grabbed a large container of accelerant — identified by police as rubbing alcohol — poured it on the woman and used a cigarette lighter to set her on fire.
Hoover, described in court records as homeless, met the woman, also 39 at the time, about six months before the fire incident, police said. Family members said the abuse began almost immediately, but that Hoover would apologize to her afterward and then shower her with gifts.
Relatives said the pair had a pattern of breaking up, then getting back together. The violence escalated from hitting to cutting, and on Mother’s Day 2019, which that year fell on May 12, Hoover choked the woman.
Fourteen days later, Hoover set his girlfriend ablaze after they argued at her Balcones Heights apartment on May 26, 2019. The woman’s brother, who was in a nearby room, woke up when he heard the screams, ran to his sister’s bedroom and wrapped her in a blanket to extinguish the blaze. Hoover left the scene.
The woman, who was six months pregnant, was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center with thirddegree burns on her arms and first-degree burns on her legs.
The baby, who is not Hoover’s, was not injured.
Hoover pleaded no contest Aug. 25 to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, causing serious bodily injury.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison via Zoom videoconferencing Oct. 5, before Judge Lori Valenzuela in the 437th state District Court. Because of COVID-19, he is in the Bexar County Jail awaiting transfer to prison.
According to court records, Hoover has been arrested more than 20 times. He has been convicted of assault, criminal mischief, terroristic threat of a family member, possession of a controlled substance and twice for family violence after he battered his disabled brother and his mother.
Hoover faced a maximum of 99 years or life in prison on the original charge involving his girlfriend. As part of the plea agreement reached between prosecutors and the defense for a maximum sentence of 12 years, the habitual offender enhancement allegation, which would have increased the lower end of the punishment range, was dropped.
Because there was an affirmative finding of assault with a deadly weapon, Hoover, now 40, will have to serve at least six years of his sentence before he would be eligible for parole.