A 38-year-old Redfield woman accused of setting fire to a Little Rock library branch over the weekend is enrolled in a monitoring program for people with mental illness who have committed crimes, court records show.
Kisha Michelle Ilo, formerly of Little Rock, is jailed on charges of reckless burning, first-degree criminal mischief and five counts of aggravated assault over accusations that she poured flammable liquid on furniture and a wall at the McMath Library, then set it on fire Saturday. Her bail is set at $15,000.
Ilo's actions were recorded by surveillance cameras, and several library employees were inside when the fire started at the John Barrow Road building, police said.
Court records show that Ilo has been hospitalized for mental illness seven times between 2005 and 2013, including three times at the State Hospital and three times at a Baptist Health facility. She also has a "long history" of not taking her medications, records show.
She has been in a state monitoring program since being released from the State Hospital in July 2013 on the condition she live with her mother in Little Rock, abstain from alcohol and continue treatment at the Little Rock Community Health Center.
As of the most recent report to the court in September, monitors have never reported grounds to revoke her release, court filings show.
Ilo has bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration and had worked in computer science and accounting firms in California before her illness manifested sometime around 2000, court filings show.
In June 2013, Ilo was acquitted on mental health grounds of felony charges of second-degree battery and leaving the scene of an injury accident.
According to court files, Ilo accosted Carla Otey and Adrian Bennett at a Little Rock convenience store in March 2013. Ilo had been in the store while the couple was shopping.
Ilo, who was a stranger to the couple, had followed them outside and blocked their car with her own vehicle, then refused requests to move it.
Otey confronted Ilo with an object from the couple's car, possibly a crow bar, and Ilo eventually got in her car and drove away.
But she returned and hit Otey with the car, carrying the woman on the hood from the parking lot onto Rodney Parham Road, where Otey fell off.
Ilo told the doctors that she thought Otey had made a threatening remark about her and her family, so she wanted to ask her about it.
Ilo told doctors she hit the woman with her car, but didn't leave the scene until she saw that the woman was not dead.
In a court-ordered mental examination, state doctors diagnosed Ilo with bipolar-type schizoaffective disorder and determined that she could not have controlled herself at the time of the incident because of her illness.
According to the mental evaluation, Ilo said she had paranoia, auditory hallucinations and racing thoughts. She said she wasn't eating or sleeping regularly and told doctors she was not taking her medication regularly.
She was getting regular treatment at the time of the evaluation report in May 2013.
The finding of innocent by mental disease by Circuit Judge Barry Sims in agreement by prosecution and defense required Ilo to be committed to the Arkansas State Hospital for doctors to devise a treatment program.
With doctors believing she was not a danger to herself or others, Ilo was released into the "Act 911" monitoring program in July 2013.
Court records show that Ilo's mother, Rosemary Adrow, had Ilo committed for mental illness in June 2005 and again in June 2006, reporting that Ilo had stopped taking medication and getting treatment.
Adrow had Ilo committed again in April 2009 because the woman was neglecting her hygiene and appearance and had stopped communicating, and was sometimes aggressive toward her mother, according to court filings.
In April 2012, the fourth time Ilo's mother had her committed, Adrow reported that Ilo had stopped taking her medications and had told Adrow that she was dead to her and to "stay out of her world."
Ilo would sometimes speak too loudly, drive recklessly and dress "very inappropriately," her mother reported.
Ilo was hospitalized for at least three months before she was well enough to be released, court filings show.
Metro on 10/13/2015