Six persons lost their home to a fire in Samaroo Dam, Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara early yesterday morning.
Sitting beside a tree in front of her yard as she took in the sight of the ruins, Philomena Pilgrim said she believed it was her mentally unstable son who started the fire minutes after she had left for work in the morning. They had had an argument after he accused her of slipping poison into his food earlier in the morning, she said.
“He said that Obama sent two angel to protect him and no poison ain’t gon kill him,” she told Stabroek News, while noting that she did not pay him attention because he was mentally unstable. She then left the house to go to work in Georgetown and on her way she got the call that her house was ablaze.
Philomena said that the neighbour told her that her son, Rockwell Pilgrim, 30, went to a nearby shop and purchased a pack of matches and a few minutes after her house was in flames. Rockwell then fled the village and was arrested by police in another village.
“He like the weed and it run he head mad. So now he come back to mek my life miserable,” the woman said, mentioning that her son had destroyed the house last year and was sentenced to eight months in the Georgetown Prison.
“When he come out of jail he went in the bush but a few months now I see he come back to perform and show me what he can do,” she added.
The fire started around 7:30am and she said that the Guyana Fire Service came after the fire had spread throughout the upper and lower flats. “They come when everything done,” she said.
Philomena noted that her house was fully furnished and she had lost everything, save for the clothes on her back.
Rockwell is currently in police custody at the La Grange Station.
