BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – ALLEGED jealousy between two estranged lovers almost led to what one landlord and house occupant believe could have been a life- threatening fire early yesterday morning (Jun. 22) in Stapleton Village, St. Peter’s.
Ethan Morton, one of the landlords of the family-owned Higher Level Apartment compound, spoke to SKNVibes about the incident.
A bundle of window curtains was allegedly lit at the back door of the man’s apartment where the kitchen is located. The curtains are said to belong to the alleged female arsonist.
Shortly after 9:00 a.m., SKNVibes visited the scene and officers from the Stapleton Police Station and Crime Scene Technician arrived within the same time frame.
Morton and one of the male occupants of the house, who was allegedly targeted, expressed that if the fire had only caught the electrical wiring such would have spelt disaster, endangering the lives of the apartments’ tenants; five in total, since water would not have been able to quench the flames.
The man explained that he arrived home the night before and went to bed about 9:00 p.m.
“At about 1:05 a.m., I heard a loud shouting for me, asking me if I light something in the kitchen at the back. The whole house inside was white with smoke. I sleep with my window open so it didn’t affect me much.”
The loud shouting came from his fellow occupant (a male).
The man said he quickly ran outside and threw some water on the fire.
He said he had taken down the curtains that he had asked the woman to collect, which she had neglect doing.
Asked about the nature of their relationship, the man said it ended in March of this year.
“She always used to like me”, he shared.
As gathered, the two got sexually involved but the man claimed to break it off almost a month after, because he realised she was “big confusion”.
According to him, whenever his female friends came by to comb his daughter’s hair it was always a “big confusion”.
The father of two, who shares the apartment with a male friend, highlighted that coincidentally he had left his children by his mother’s house the night. The man said he was glad he had made that decision and was fortunate in shielding his children from the feud between himself and the woman.
He suspects that the conflict originated three weeks ago after a female friend had visited his home to “comb my daughter’s hair”.
The man said he was in the bath one day and his friend had opened the door after he heard the knocking. On opening the door, the woman walked inside his bedroom and sat on his bed.
It was further claimed that he had asked her to leave but she refused.
“I went to the Police Station, the police came and gave her a warning to keep from here and not be seen in my yard but she denied being here”.
“She is a crazy woman. I can’t tell you how much I chase she. She always pushing up herself to me,” he told SKNVibes.
On Tuesday (Jun. 18), between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m., another female friend visited him because he wasn’t feeling well.
He claimed that the woman saw his friend and assumed that she was intimately involved with him.
The explained that he was sitting on a chair next to the female friend and he believed that the woman had been looking through the window. He said she rapped on the door and when he asked what she wanted “she say she want talk to me and told me to give her one minute”.
He said he stepped outside because “I know I didn’t want no embarrassment with my friend”.
“She asked me how long I going play with her heart. I told her you need to go home”.
He said the woman started hitting him in his face.
He showed SKNVibes some visible scratch marks on his neck and claimed that the woman tired choking him but he managed to push her off.
“What got me upset is that when I tried to go back inside she pulled the door and slammed it on me shoulder...my shoulder almost break. I turn and give her a box in her face.”
He said because of the injury to his shoulder he was unable to go to work for about three days and had to get an X-ray for his arm.
The man further stated that the woman then started making noise saying that he must return the window curtains that she gave him.
As explained, one day the woman went to his house while he was out and put up those curtains.
After that altercation between them, he said the woman then went to the side of the house and used a lighter to set the curtains on fire.
After witnessing her do that, the man said he took photographs of her “right away” which he said is evidence for the police.
“I say, ‘Oh, you crazy’, and I give she a slap and she collect a two-by-four board with a nail to bang me with.”
After some wrangling, he said he got the board away from her and went to the Police Station to make a report.
The man chided the police for not going to address that past matter.
“I don’t know what they waiting to see happen to take action. All this could have been avoided because I have made several reports.”
The man was also upset because, as he claimed, the police did not include his broken bones in his statement on the medical paper.
As for the female friend who was at his home during the incident, the man said she had exited through the back door.
He further claimed that on that Tuesday the woman made threatening language to his life
The man is of the opinion that because of how society thinks, he would be criticised because he hit the woman, but ‘I was just simply representing myself”.
“If she could kill me she woulda kill me,” he added.
Meanwhile, one female tenant of another apartment said she was home sleeping with her two sons, ages two and nine, but was unaware of the fire until she woke up the following morning.
Over the thought that if the fire had spread to her home, she shared that her apartment has just “one entrance” which is outside the area where the fire was lit.
“I was sleeping. I ain’t even know fire out here. I ain’t know all this going on.”
“Just standing here this bothering me because I have sinus (problems),” she said while pointing to the burnt material.
