Horrific: Minn. Teen Burned Alive by Mother's Boyfriend Speaks Out

A St. Paul, Minn. teenager spoke out for the first time Friday about a horrific attack in which his mother's boyfriend allegedly doused him in lighter fluid while he was sleeping and lit him on fire.

Wrapped in bandages, Antoine Willis, 19, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his head, neck and torso, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

"I thought I was going to die because I've never been burned alive," Willis said from a St. Paul hospital about the Wednesday attack. "It was terrible."

The boyfriend, 54-year-old Curtis E. Reed, has been charged with assault. According to the Daily Mail, he shouted, "I got you now! I got you now!" as Willis tried to put out the flames.

The Tribune reported:

According to the complaint, Willis' mother, Jodi Stewart, awoke to her son's screams about 7 a.m. and saw that "a fireball as big as a basketball" surrounded his head.

Reed chased Willis out of the house in the 1300 block of Ames Avenue on the East Side, continuing to spray him with the lighter fluid. Willis fled to a neighbor's house, where an ambulance was called.

Hours earlier, according to the Tribune, Reed had threatened Stewart with a knife. Willis and two of Stewart's friends intervened, beating Reed.

Reed and Stewart have been in a relationship for eight years, and he has been convicted of attacking her before.

"I don't want to talk to him," Stewart said. "I'm totally in shock....For him to do something like this is outrageous."

Willis, who could be in the hospital for at least three to four weeks, said he's been having nightmares about the attack.

"I had a dream last night that I had seen him in my room," Willis said. "When I woke up it was just another nurse, and it scared me to death because I thought he'd come back to finish what he started."