Family of Ten Displaced By Arson in Ladyville
A sixty-six-year old grandmother and her extended family are tonight reeling from the devastating loss of their family home. The property located along the Phillip Goldson Highway was reduced to rubbles in an alleged arson. Sixty-six-year old Marie Lamothe told police that her ex-common law husband started an argument with her last night. She alleges that he made threats to set her house on fire. At around ten p.m. Lamothe and her family saw the two story wooden structure engulfed in flames. News Five’s Paul Lopez reports.
Paul Lopez, Reporting
A family of ten in Ladyville was displaced due to a house fire on Tuesday night. Twenty-one-year-old Ronaldo Sebastian was sleeping on the second floor of the wooden structure when the fire began. This morning, Sebastian, his brothers, and cousins were seeking shelter from the rain inside an old van parked inside the yard.
Ronaldo Sebastian
Ronaldo Sebastian, Fire Victim
“Before everything happened I was downstairs eating, like how yesterday was her birthday. We just chill down here with my granny. She cut the cake and serves us. From there I finished eat and I tell her I gwen sleep.”
During his sleep, Sebastian realized that something was terribly wrong.
Ronaldo Sebastian
“So, I the upstairs the sleep and I get up and I wonder why my fan the thrown hot breeze. So, I get up and I see smoke around me. So, I run down and the first thing I run for is my granny. Then I run downstairs fih gawn hail he. Then from there, he run, the one in the green chair gawn hail he because he mih the sleep. He wrapped up in the sheet and never feel anything. When we see he run down the steps. He fly run down the steps. I run back up to save my dog. I couldn’t save ah, so I just had to run back down and jump off the verandah.”
The fire began just before ten p.m. It was allegedly started by the ex-common-law husband of the matriarch of the family. It is alleged that the perpetrator set the house on fire in a jealous rage, after Sebastian’s grandmother refused to have a relationship with him despite his pleas.
Ronaldo Sebastian
“He was have a relationship with my granny. My granny left him and he like drink and stuff. My granny left him. And he start courting my granny fih come back and stuff. So, my granny tell ah ih nuh want have nothing fih do with ah, because she relationship right now the guh betta than what she had with he. So threaten ah and said, none ah we ah sleep tonight, that he wah light up the house pan fire, and that dah weh he did, light up the house pan fire.”
Ronaldo’s grandmother and his sister, Scarlet Benitez, spent the night inside this makeshift tent. The grandmother spent most of her morning talking to police officers inside the Ladyville Police Station. Benitez gathered what remained of her personal belongings, as she watched the home she has lived her entire childhood now burnt to ashes.
Scarlet Benitez
Scarlet Benitez, Fire Victim
“This was my only place of rest. During the week I stay at my work. I have a room there. My boss gives me. I only come down on the weekend to check on my people and leave a little money and stuff, food for them and I go back on Sunday evenings to work.”
Paul Lopez
“You are packing your bags right now.”
Scarlet Benitez
“Yeah, I am packing my bags, the lee bit a stuff I have, what I have left from the fire. Almost everything burn down for us. Like, everybody stay without clothes everything. Nobody have nothing.”
Since this morning, Bernardo Bennett, the Chairman of the Village, has been working along with the National Emergency Management Organization and the Ministry of Human Development to provide assistance to the family.
Bernardo Bennett
Bernardo Bennett, Chairman, Ladyville Village Council
“Early this morning, I came by and I briefed the area representative about the situation on the ground. We got NEMO on board. We also have the Ministry of Human Development on board to try and see how much assistance we can get from those to assist the family. So far, we will be putting them up in a house for at least for a month or two to try to work and see how we can build back at least a structure so that they can live peacefully.”
Ronaldo Sebastian
“All I got fih say, if deh got people out deh weh could come support we, at least with a lee bit, we wah be grateful and god bless them with atleast what they could give we, a lee help.This is the shelter for the moment. I sleep here last night so. Lot of flies. Have to make it, have to be strong. But as long as god deh pan we side, we wah come back up again. From zero we wah mek perfect again.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez
