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Man torches wife’s home, in custody
Minutes after 30-year-old Matthew Johnson, a labourer who periodically resides at Queenstown, Essequibo Coast with the mother of his child, Nelly Sookra, set the woman’s two- bedroom Food for the Poor house ablaze, police apprehended him at a cook shop in the Village.
Arson charges will be soon instituted against Johnson, police said.
Nelly Sookra and her daughter at what’s left of their home
Nelly Sookra said that Johnson, after setting her house alight, went on the road and was overheard boasting about what he had done.
Ms. Sookra said that Johnson attempted on several occasions before to destroy the house in which she and her daughter, Monella Johnson, lived for the past eight years.
The woman said that they barely made it out alive before Johnson set the house ablaze sometime around 6:30pm, Friday night.
Ms. Sookra, who is currently staying at her sister Mala Sookra, said that she is unsure how long her sister would be able to accommodate her and her daughter.
She said that the house belonged to her mother, Raywattie Sookra. Ms. Sookra explained that Johnson came to her house Friday evening and greeted her and daughter with hugs and kisses.
“He asked me if I love him and I asked him the same,” Sookra related.
She added that Johnson then proceeded to offer her two hundred dollars which she refused. Immediately after, he started to misbehave.
The homeless woman recalled that her reputed husband, who appeared to be partially drunk, began cursing her and her immediate neighbour, pensioner Curtis Austin, before he was seen kicking down the door.
Austin’s house was scorched.
Johnson later took a lighted kerosene oil lamp and threw it on Ms. Sookra’s bed, which went up in flames.
Austin, who was forced to call the police on at least four occasions, said that if members of the force had arrived earlier after he had made the first call, Ms. Sookra might have saved a few valuables.
Ms. Sookra said she recently came back after spending some time with her two other children and had cleaned her entire house earlier in the day.
The homeless mother is willing to accept any form of assistance the public is willing to offer during her period of loss.
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