A 63-year-old Guyanese woman was discovered dead in her Queens Village, New York home just after 11 pm on Tuesday and officers from the New York Police Department have taken a tenant into custody.
The fire razed the first floor of the building where Bibi Jazmin, known as Azmin Shaw was living alone. Her body was said to have been burnt beyond recognition.
Reports are that the tenant who lived in the basement was about to be evicted and that had probably angered him.
Firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze quickly and prevented it from engulfing the upper flat of the building.
Another Guyanese woman, Sharon Sobha and her two children ages, 13 and 15, who occupied the upper flat were not at home at the time of the fire.
Jazmin’s brother, Mohamed Shaw told Stabroek News (SN) that he believes that his sister was asleep when the fire started.
She had suffered a stroke and was apparently unable to escape the blaze. The wheelchair-bound woman is originally from Dundee, Mahaicony.
Shaw did not reveal any information about the suspected arson or the arrest, but told this newspaper that investigators were not ruling out homicide as the motive for his sister’s death.
He said too that they were also investigating all other possible angles that may have triggered the inferno.
He said he and his family were unable to view the body because it was a “police matter.”
He described his sister as a “pioneer for the family.” Living in New York over 34 years, she was responsible for sponsoring him and other family members to join her in the US.
He said she was a businesswoman and had operated a store for a number of years. She sold the store after she became sick. She also worked as a security guard.
Sobha told SN that she and her children had gone to an 8 pm movie when she received a call from a neighbour, who thought they were in the building, that the house was on fire.
She left immediately and when she arrived just before 12, thick black smoke had engulfed the bottom flat and sections of her apartment.
She could not assess the extent of the damage to her apartment because it was still under police cordon.
Her children are starting school today and everything that she bought for them to go with was left in the apartment. She is grateful to the pastor of her church for taking them shopping yesterday for new items.
The single mother who works at the Queens Reform Church, is thankful that she decided to take the children out before school reopened.
She pointed out that there was only one access between the two flats and felt that she and the children would have also been trapped in the building.
The NYPD is continuing its investigations.