A domestic brawl nearly turned deadly on Tuesday night when a man allegedly armed himself with a bottle of gasoline and attempted to set his wife on fire at Newtown, Kitty.
However, June McCalmon Jervis managed to escape out of a window and her husband reportedly opted to torch their Da Silva Street home and a neighbouring residence was also burnt as a result.
According to a police source, investigations so far suggest that the suspect’s actions were premeditated.
He noted that the couple had been fighting and the man dealt his wife several cuffs. She then reportedly threatened to call the police.
Stabroek News had previously reported that the fire started around 10pm and that officers at the scene described the bloody condition in which Jervis was found. She had reportedly told them that after she jumped out of the window her partner initially gave chase but then turned and ran back into the building.
According to the police source, the gasoline had been kept in a Busta bottle and was sprinkled about the house. When the suspect attempted to pour the substance on the woman, however, she managed to escape through a louvre window on the ground floor.
Unfortunately, two houses, the couple’s and a neighbours, were gutted as a result of the act.
The neighbours to the west—Adunni Orderson, of Lot 182 Da Silva and De Abreu streets, along with her partner and three children, as well as a man who resided in the downstairs of the building—have been displaced.
Orderson had been living at the property for 22 years.
The woman told this newspaper yesterday that she was in bed when the fire started but was alerted by her daughter, who had just returned home from class. She related that the couple had been quarrelling before the incident, and said that it was a normal occurrence.
The two have reportedly been married for just under a year.
When Stabroek News visited the scene yesterday, persons were clearing out the downstairs of the two-story building owned by Orderson. The top wooden half of the building, however, where Orderson lived, was gutted by the fire.
Orderson related that the only things she managed to save were important documents. She noted that when she first saw the fire, it had been small, and she had not expected that it would spread to the magnitude that it did and so quickly.
She related that she had been forced to jump the fence to exit the yard because she could not find her keys at the time.
The police had said that Jervis was admitted to the hospital, but this newspaper was told that she was discharged yesterday. Family members were trying to locate her and her children without success up to yesterday afternoon.
