An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion has been re­quest­ed for the teenag­er who was re­spon­si­ble for start­ing a fire on Sun­day which gut­ted the fam­i­ly’s home in San­ta Cruz. Rel­a­tives of the 16-year-old re­port­ed that the girl be­gan “act­ing strange­ly and speak­ing of hear­ing strange voic­es” some time ago.

Po­lice said the fire, which be­gan around 12.30 pm, de­stroyed the two-apart­ment con­crete struc­ture at Car­mona Lane, Gran Cu­ra­caye Road, Bourg Mu­la­tresse, Low­er San­ta Cruz—leav­ing at least four peo­ple, in­clud­ing the Form Three stu­dent, home­less.

Al­though fire of­fi­cers from the San Juan Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed and were able to con­tain the blaze, they were un­able to save the house or any of the con­tents.

The prop­er­ty own­er, who is said to be liv­ing abroad, has two ten­ants—the fam­i­ly of the teenag­er and a 55-year-old se­cu­ri­ty guard.

The guard said he was home around mid­day when he saw smoke com­ing from the apart­ment next door—and alert­ed that ten­ant by call­ing out to her.

Even­tu­al­ly, the teenag­er ran out­side and in­formed the guard that she was home alone.

How­ev­er, by this time, the struc­ture was to­tal­ly en­gulfed, and the two were un­able to save any­thing.

In­ter­viewed in the pres­ence of her 59-year-old grand­moth­er, the girl al­leged­ly told po­lice she poured a flam­ma­ble liq­uid, which Guardian Me­dia learned was Methy­lat­ed Spir­its, on a pil­low in the liv­ing room nd then set it alight.

The el­der­ly woman con­firmed to po­lice that the teenag­er had re­cent­ly be­gun act­ing strange­ly, claim­ing that she was hear­ing voic­es.

The young woman was lat­er tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, by her moth­er and grand­moth­er, where she was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined for smoke in­hala­tion, and a re­quest for a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion was sub­mit­ted.