This woman is smiling because the yoga studio she set on fire was ‘the Devil’s temple’

After her rather chipper mugshot found its way onto the Internet, a Texas woman took the time to explain why she was in such a good mood after being arrested.

“Most people can’t understand the smiling mug shot,” Nancy Duarte told CBS-DFW News from her jail cell.

The 41 year-old woman was just trying to lend a positive spin to the anger that drove her destroy a yoga studio with a baseball bat and then set fire to it using a can of gasoline.

From CBS-DFW:

It’s a strange expression for someone who’s just been arrested for trying to burn down the yoga studio where she practiced, but Nancy Duarte, who goes by Suzanne, says she smiled in her mugshot because she’s trying to let go of her anger, which is why she went to American Power Yoga Saturday carrying a baseball bat and a can of gasoline.

“I thought it was going to make me happy… to burn the place that had brought me so much pain and suffering,” Duarte said.

Duarte has longstanding disputes with two men associated with the yoga studio.

“He kept hitting on me and kept trying to make me the girlfriend on the side,” Duarte claimed about one of the men.

She says both men continued to harass her for years in and out of the studio.

“Even as I’m walking out the door, he kept trying to put his hands on me, and I was like, ‘No!’” Duarte said.

duarte
Image via CBS 11 News

“She was taking matches and lighting them and tossing them,” Brad Dickinson said, who was downstairs at the Pocket Sandwich Theater waiting for a comedy show to begin.

Dickinson added that the entire shopping center could have been burnt to the ground.

“That would have ended a 35-year run of the Pocket Sandwich Theatre at least for awhile,” Dickinson said.

Duarte is being held on a $16,000 bond.

Featured image courtesy of The Raw Story

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.

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