– suspect accused of setting Linden house on fire arrested
who died in the Linden fire
Four individuals, including two children, tragically lost their lives in two separate fires in Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) and Good Hope in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam).
The first incident took place on Monday evening when a girl who was celebrating her 12th birthday and her aunt perished after their Silvertown, Linden home was set on fire by a male relative who was later apprehended. He had previously threatened to set the house on fire.
The fire reportedly rapidly consumed the two-storey house, leaving 12-year-old Eukeila Adams and her 50-year-old aunt, Cheryl Moore, trapped inside. Despite the efforts of firefighters, both victims could not have been saved.
According to the Guyana Fire Service, the fire started at about 23:45h, and by the time firefighters arrived at the scene, the house was already engulfed in flames.
The child’s mother, Althea Adams, told Guyana Times on Tuesday that her daughter had been living with her father and they had not communicated for about a year. Althea said she had hoped to spend her daughter’s birthday with her but that wish did not come through. She said she learnt of her child’s tragic passing through social media.
“I was home and my friend come and show me on social media that the house was on fire, so I run from where I living to the house. When I got there, nobody told me anything. Eyewitnesses on the scene told me that was her daughter’s uncle who lit the house on fire,” she said.
“Apparently, his wife put him out and he was living at the house for a short time and some problem he had with them at the house and they put him out. He allegedly comes outside and eyewitnesses say he lock up the downstairs because there is no outside exit. They can only come out from inside the house, and he lights all the windows around the house and he was holding a cutlass and a bottle and he was saying if any of them come out, he would chop them up.”
The woman said she had requested to see her daughter three weeks in advance and she was promised that she would get her on her birthday. She said the child’s aunt, after not being able to fulfil her promise, told her that she would get the girl on Tuesday.
“I wanted to see my daughter and take her out for her birthday. I wanted her to spend some time with her siblings. The last time I got to spend time with my daughter was last year when she was staying here with me for about five months. Me and her father had a mutual agreement for her to stay with him and when I call her to get him, he doesn’t want to send her with me. I went to welfare and everything and they told me that I need a lawyer. I asked them why do I need a lawyer when we had a mutual understanding.”
“My daughter just wrote common entrance and was supposed to go to secondary school when school open…. this is painful, this is heart-wrenching,” she said.
She bemoaned the fact that her daughter would have been alive today if she had spent her birthday with her.
“If they had only given me my daughter, she would have been alive today. Maybe there would have been a fire, but my daughter would not have been in it. All I wanted was my daughter. Now, she died on her 12th birthday. This is the second child I lost in such a cruel way… this is hard,” the woman cried,
Althea’s six-year-old son Keith Adams was struck and killed by a speeding car on Westminster Road, at La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, as he was making his way to school in November 2015.
Police said the accident occurred when the driver of a speeding car was proceeding along the roadway at a fast rate, lost control of the vehicle, and hit Adams, who was taken to the hospital and was pronounced dead.
Meanwhile, in Region Two, 32-year-old Susan Bibi LaCruz, a housewife, and her 9-year-old son, Ilyas Wilson, a former pupil of Good Hope Primary School on the Essequibo Coast, also perished in a fire.
Police stated that at about 05:00h on Tuesday, the devastating fire completely destroyed their two-storey wooden and concrete building at Lot 12 Good Hope, Essequibo Coast.
According to initial information, LaCruz was suffering from a ‘stroke’, and she was occupying the upper flat of the house where she lived with her husband and their three children, aged 13, 12 and 9.
The lower flat was occupied by another relative, his wife, daughter, and granddaughter.
According to the relative, who is LaCruz’s brother-in-law, he was in the lower flat with his family at about 5:00h when he heard his 13-year-old nephew raising an alarm about a fire. He stated that as he went to investigate, he saw the teenager running down the stairway. By this time, the man had already moved his family to safety.
However, as he rushed to the upper flat of the house, he was greeted by a ball of fire. His primary focus was to get the others out of the house. He first collected his 12-year-old niece, who was in the middle room, and made sure she was safe. As he approached the front bedroom, occupied by LaCruz and her son, Ilyas Wilson, he was forced to retreat due to the intensity of the heat.
