‘I don’t know what more to do? Why the police can’t arrest this man?
More than six months after the house she built in Sophia with her life’s savings was allegedly set alight by her husband, Victorine Ifill is still crying out for justice and has severely criticized police ranks at the Sophia Police Station for their seemingly inept investigation.
“I don’t know what more to do? Why the police can’t arrest this man? They want me to go and look for he, I see this man steady and he disguising, wearing Rasta wig and turban,” an angry Ifill told Stabroek News recently.
The frustrated woman said she has been running frequently to the Sophia Police Station and it now appears as if the officers “are fed up of me because one a them when I go to tell he how I see the man he turn he back on me.”
The woman was then forced to visit police headquarters Eve Leary and some ranks were sent with her to scour the back of Sophia but the man was not found.
“Right now I frighten because with all what I seeing happening to women I don’t know if this man might want kill me or something,” the woman said.
However, she did admit that while she has seen the man a few times he has never approached her but she suspects some text messages she has received from anonymous numbers came from him.
“Don’t worry be happy,” and “I go meet you at hell’s gate,” are two of the text messages the woman believed were sent by her husband.
On September 11 last year Ifill’s Sophia two-storey concrete house was totally destroyed, allegedly at the hands of her husband, Stanley Griffith, known also as ‘Denis Griffith,’ from whom she was separated.
The man had allegedly kicked down the door to the two storey house and set it on fire, using cooking gas and kerosene. In a matter of minutes, the house and all of Ifill’s possessions were gone. Only her dogs and few of the chickens she reared, most of which were stolen by unkind neighbours, were saved from the fire. Ifill and her son, Ron Lamaison, were left homeless as well as the man’s own daughter, who lived in the house.
Evidence
Giving an example of the sloppy police investigation, Ifill revealed that it was only four weeks ago the police removed the gas bottle the man allegedly used to set the fire.
“That is evidence and only four weeks ago they collect that bottle, what really the police doing?” the woman questioned.
She singled out a corporal at the station whom she feels may have been in contact with her husband because of some utterances he made to her.
“He tell me just like suh, that me house must be been weak, that is the same thing my husband use to say how the house don’t have a good foundation. The next time he tell me how I stupid and I must be want the man back, I don’t know what he mean by that,” the woman cried.
But it is not only the police who seem to be working against Ifill, since according to her the man who claimed to have seen her husband in the act is still to give the police a statement.
She is not sure if the police had approached the man, who usually does odd jobs around the area, for a statement but she had given the police that information.
“But instead of arresting the man and questioning he they arrest a blind man and tell he I say how he see. Now tell me how a blind man could see anything? This is what I talking about and this man like me husband get to he and he ent telling the police what he see,” the woman stressed.
She said the blind man has since passed away but she is still upset that the police approached him in the first place.
“This man is behaving like he is a law onto himself and the police is allowing him to do this, why they can’t arrest him?” she asked.
‘No help’
Shortly after her home was destroyed Ifill had vowed to rebuild since it was always her dream to own her own home.
She had worked for years in Antigua and saved her money to make that dream come through but it was cruelly snatched for her.
While she has the will to rebuild, Ifill’s financial position is weak but she still managed to put a structure up.
“But I can’t live in it, the four walls are there but it need plastering, it need roof, doors…” the woman lamented.
The woman said she only received some assistance from the Guyana Relief Council and although some persons had promised to assist her no one has come forward with assistance.
She has been living at a friend since but her dream is to once again move into her own house.
“I really want to live in my own house again, it is hard,” the woman, who spends all her days at the structure, said sadly.
She had plugged all her life’s savings into the house.
“I am not a broken woman, no I am not, I would build again,” she had declared during an interview with this newspaper last year.
Today she may still not be broken but she is despondent and fears that she may never be able to live in her own house again.
“I always said that at fifty I want to have my own house and I want to just be enjoying life,” she explained.
Before the fire she had been living her dream, which came true long before she celebrated her fiftieth birthday a month before the fire. To achieve it, Ifill spent 12 years in Antigua, where she held three jobs. “I worked three jobs and I keep sending home my money and I got the land and start to build. I worked hard for years,” she said.
According to Ifill the fire was the culmination of her husband’s attempts to “totally control” her.
“He was very possessive but I did not allow him to control me and that got him more angry.”
However, she noted that while Griffith threatened her repeatedly and talked “all kinds of nasty things about me,” he never threatened to burn down the house.
“Is like he hated women because one time he said all women are dogs,” she added. She also felt that he was angered by the fact that she never used his name but continued with her maiden name.
The man had also started an extra-marital relationship with a woman in the area and when his wife found out he told her he had ended it.
“But I didn’t believe he and he get more vex and start doing all kinds of things,” the woman said.
She said a month before the fire she decided to call it quits and with the help of the police had put the man out of the house but she never anticipated that he would have taken her dream away.
