The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

MORE than three weeks after six relatives were burned to death in a residence on Homestead Street, authorities have yet to complete their investigations.

Speaking to The Tribune yesterday, Royal Bahamas Police Force spokesman Superintendent Stephen Dean said a number of technicalities still need to be settled.

“At this point,” Mr Dean said, “we are still waiting on the DNA results from samples taken from the victims which were sent away for analysis. Until that, among other things happens, our report remains incomplete.”

During the early morning hours of September 23, the small four room structure in which the victims slept caught fire.

Fifty-two year old Marilyn Barrett, 23-year-old Unissa Pratt and 2-year-old Joashinique King, all of Homestead Street have been positively identified.
The other three are believed to be Jennifer Bisphaint, 22, mother of the two-year-old, Melchizedek Bain, 15, and Trayvon Grant, 16.

Eyewitnesses said they heard screams and cries for help as a neighbour attempted to save relatives from the house which was totally engulfed in flames.

While inside, authorities said the victims attempted to escape through the front door of the house, but flames prevented them from exiting.

They then attempted to get out through the back door of the structure, but that effort was made impossible because a fridge was blocking the exit, a police source told The Tribune.

In a last ditch effort, all of the victims piled into the bathroom where they again tried to get out through a window, but burglar bars prevented them. Investigators found each of them there where they were burned severely.

Family members have told reporters they strongly believe that the incident was the result of arson. Several of them have questioned how it was possible that five adults were unable to make a way out during the blaze.

However, a police source told this newspaper that authorities were almost certain that the blaze was a result of an electrical shortage in an extension cord.

The cord, it is claimed, was connected to a power outlet at another building where a fire simultaneously began shortly after fire crews responded to the scene.