Bahamas: 47-year-old woman and her two children killed in an apartment fire
A woman and two children died in an apartment fire on Coco Plum Avenue, off East Street, yesterday morning, police said.
Family and friends identified the victims as Louisemane “Teeman” Thelusmond, 47; Ronisha Pierrette, 11; and Taylor Louissaint, 8.
Superintendent Kenrick Morris, director of fire services, said the Fire Department received reports of the fire around 5:50 a.m. Two fire trucks were sent to the scene.
“Some six minutes later, the first unit arrived on the scene where they met apartment number two, which is a [part of a] single-story, five-room [wooden] structure, engulfed in flames,” Morris told reporters.
“The fire was quickly extinguished. However, the [apartment] was destroyed by fire. Upon extinguishing the fire, a search was conducted where the partially charred remains of three bodies were found. Our inquiries are ongoing.”
He said investigators suspect that four people lived in the apartment.
Morris said one of the residents “managed to escape the fire”.
“My investigators are on the scene, as you can see, making inquiries,” he said when asked about the cause of the fire.
Morris said arson is not suspected.
The apartment next to the burnt apartment appeared untouched by flames. There was a large hole in the apartment's roof where the victims lived, and the front window and door were missing.
Children’s clothes were sprawled on top of a damp, brown box that rested on ashy, burnt wood near the apartment entrance. Neighbours and family members assessed the damage of the place and searched for any keepsakes that were spared by the flames.
One family friend, who did not want to be identified, told reporters that Ronisha and Taylor moved in with Thelusmond after their mother died in December.
She said witnesses told her that the children had cried out for help as the fire engulfed the apartment.
“They were crying for their lives, for somebody to save them,” she said.
“This is very hard. This is very tragic. We asked for people to be more careful and be more helpful, too, because it’s a wooden house. I know the fire could’ve come very hard and strong, but those children were crying, they said – I wasn’t there – but they said those children were crying for their lives.
“Somebody could’ve hit the house and let those children survive, but that’s what God wants. We cannot stop it, but I feel terrible and sad and hurt to see a good friend and good friend, my sister, die. Every time that I would talk, that’s who I would talk to. We would talk and laugh all the time, and those kids were just like my children.”
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