CCTV captures intruder before Angoy’s Avenue house fire

A fire at an Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam home early Monday morning has taken on another twist after relatives discovered that the building had been ransacked, while surveillance footage captured a person entering the upper verandah before the blaze. No one was at the Lot 740 Angoy’s Avenue property when the fire occurred. The house belongs to Donna Juno, who was reportedly offshore working at the time, while her daughter was staying with her cousin, 43-year-old Annie Mource, at Vryheid, Greater New Amsterdam. Mource said it was around 03:30h when Juno’s daughter awoke her after receiving a call from a friend informing her that the house was on fire. The two rushed to Angoy’s Avenue, where firefighters, police ranks and Guyana Power and Light (GPL) personnel were already on the scene. A number of persons had also gathered in the area. By the time they arrived, Mource said, the fire had already been brought under control.

“It’s hurtful to know, you know, you got to jump out your bed to come to this disaster here,” Mource said. After arriving, Mource said she was taken into the house by a member of the Fire Service and later gave a statement. It was upon entering the upper apartment that she realised the family was dealing with more than the destruction caused by the fire. Mource said all three bedrooms had been ransacked. “When I went upstairs, it was ransacked, you know. Her bedroom, ransacked. The second room, ransacked. The other room, it ransacked,” she recalled. She said alcohol that had been kept in the house was missing, while items had also been taken from the refrigerator. The condition of the house was particularly striking to Mource since, according to her, she had been there just one day earlier to clean. “It was very devastating because, you know, I only went here the day before to clean and to come back to know those kind of things,” she said.
Surveillance footage from the property has added to the family’s suspicion that the house was broken into before the fire. Footage seen by this publication shows a person entering the property during the early hours of Monday and making their way from the lower section of the premises into the upper verandah. Mource said Juno subsequently sent her the surveillance recording. “The video showed that the guy climb up from the bottom patio to go up on the top patio,” she said.

Mource further alleged that the footage showed the person signalling towards a someone nearby and, in her view, appearing to receive instructions from someone who was waiting. Mource also believes the person gained entry to the house through a window in one of the rooms after reaching the upper verandah. While the surveillance footage and the state of the rooms have raised suspicions of a break-in, it was not immediately established whether the person captured on camera had any connection to the subsequent fire. The blaze caused extensive damage to the property, with the lower section of the building bearing severe signs of fire damage. At the scene on Monday, sections of the wooden exterior were visibly scorched and blackened, while windows in the lower flat were damaged. Inside, walls, beams and other wooden components had been heavily burnt.
Furniture and other household items were also badly damaged, with some reduced to charred frames amid burnt debris. Fire damage was also evident in the upper apartment, where portions of the flooring were extensively damaged and sections had been burned through by the flames. Other areas of the upper flat remained standing, but belongings were scattered throughout rooms that Mource said had been ransacked. The cause of the blaze was not immediately established.