Police: Woman lit her panties on fire in OC jail cell

Police said a woman held in an Ocean City jail cell set her underpants on fire, using a lighter she smuggled past officers by concealing it in her vagina.

Lisa Bergling Kerstetter, 53, had been jailed in a ground-floor holding area late Wednesday at the police station. Each jail cell has a telephone prisoners can use to make collect phone calls. There is also, separately, an intercom that prisoners can use to buzz the front desk.

Kerstetter was the only prisoner being held at the time. She buzzed the desk officer, telling him that "he better let her go." The desk officer then reported hearing "an odd crackling noise in the background" over the intercom, according to charging documents. He sent an aide down to the cells to check it out.

The hallway leading to the jail cells was full of smoke. That's because Kerstetter had removed her own underwear, draped it over the telephone, and used the cigarette lighter to ignite her panties. Police said this left the telephone melted and discolored, with the wall scorched up to the ceiling.

Police later found Kerstetter in possession of a disposable plastic lighter, according to Ocean City Police spokeswoman Lindsay Richard.

"The lighter would not typically be in the cell with her, but she had it hidden in a spot where our public safety aides would not typically check," Richard said.

Kerstetter's night with police started at 9 p.m. Police said they found her severely intoxicated and crawling around the parking lot of a 64th Street shopping center, her purse open and her belongings strewn about her.

She had just exited a taxi that was supposed to have been taking her home to Bishopville from a downtown Ocean City bar. The driver told police she had jumped out of his cab.

According to charging documents, the responding police officer tried to help. He made sure she had enough cash for another cab home, put up with her even as she began to call police nasty names.

"Her speech was so slurred and incoherent that I could not understand her," Patrolman 1st Class Michael Karsnitz wrote in his report. "I explained... she could not sleep where she was and asked if she would like to go home."

As a new taxi pulled up to get her, Kerstetter got more agitated, police said. She had trouble standing, and threatened to "smack" another policeman on the scene with a soda bottle she was carrying, according to court documents.

Her next move was to hurl the bottle at the front window of a nearby nail salon. There was no damage to the salon, but at this point, police had enough. They arrested her and walked her over to the police station, which is next door at 65th Street.

Kerstetter has a Dec. 11 District Court hearing scheduled to face criminal charges of arson, reckless endangerment, and endangering others by being intoxicated, according to online court records.

bshane@delmarvanow.com

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