WRONG MAN KILLED

HOMICIDE detectives believe whoever set fire to the home of Nicholas Yarde 12 days ago, did so with the intention of killing him inside the burning house. However, they got the wrong man, killing instead, Yarde’s 26-year-old friend, Chris Zavier, who was alone in the house at the time of the arson. Zavier, of Guayaguayare Road, Rio Claro, who sustained first degree burns about his body, died on Wednesday around 7 pm at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital — after languishing for ten days in hospital. When Newsday visited Yarde’s home yesterday, his sister Karleen did not say much, only that “he (Zavier) was too good to die that way. I have nothing else to say and we have no pictures to give. The police should have called you when the incident happened. Why the police did not do anything?” Police sources told Newsday Yarde, who lived a couple of houses away from Zavier, was recently involved in an altercation with someone and the fire which killed Zavier was really intended for him (Yarde).

Investigators said six days before the incident, the killer/s tried to burn down Yarde’s house but were unsuccessful that time. Newsday understands that Zavier frequently went to Yarde’s house to watch television, while he (Yarde), a watchman was at work. On the fateful day, Zavier visited his friend’s house again. Sometime during the wee hours of Sunday November 30, he was asleep on a couch inside Yarde’s home, when the house was set on fire. Zavier awoke to find fire engulfing his body. Zavier, his body covered in flames, ran screaming out of the house and fell in the yard. A neighbour who heard the screams and saw the human fireball ran to the burning man and extinguished the flames. The police and EHS were summoned and the unconscious man, smoke rising from his raw burnt flesh, was taken to Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit in critical condition. Zavier died ten days later. An autopsy will be done today. Insp Fitzgerald George of the San Fernando Homicide Bureau and Cpl Mahabir of the Rio Claro Police are investigating the incident. No arrests have been made as yet and police do not know how the killer/s started the fire.