HUMAN TORCH

La Rosa, 37, died at the scene while 52-year-old Samuel remains warded in hospital in a critical condition with burns to 70 percent of his body. The fire also destroyed three houses built on the compound and has left eight people homeless. The couple was in a relationship for over eight years and had three children together.

According to reports, at 5.15 pm Khadysha Issac, a 20-year-old relative of Samuel arrived at their Eighth Street East home. The compound contains about five houses.

Issac said the sounds of rainfall on the roof was all she heard for a few minutes until a quarrel erupted at one of the other houses.

“I did not even know that anyone else was in the yard at the time.

All of a sudden I heard a commotion like people quarrelling and fighting,” Issac said, adding that when she realised it was La Rosa and Samuel who were arguing, she decided not to get involved in the ex-couple’s tiff.

“I then smelled gas but before I could even come out of my house, I heard a loud ‘boom’ and then screams from both Clifford and Anika. She screamed twice and that was it from her. I saw Clifford running in the yard, covered from his head to his toes in fire. It was like a scene from a movie,” Issac said.

Samuel, she related, quickly hurled himself into a drain filled with water from the day’s incessant rainfall. Issac, relatives and neighbours rushed to the burning man’s assistance. Before he lapsed into unconsciousness, his charred skin falling away from his arms and legs, Samuel told those gathered around, “Anika trying to kill meh!” Even as houses on the property caught fire, the gathering’s attention remained on Samuel who was pulled out of the drain, placed in a vehicle and driven to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope. A call was made to the police and fire services and firemen later doused the blaze but not before three houses were gutted.

Police sources said that so intense was the heat that La Rosa’s upper body was burnt down to bones while he legs remained untouched by the flames. Her corpse was removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for autopsy.

Police sources said investigations are proceeding along the route of an attempted murder and suicide.

Relatives said that within recent times, the couple’s relationship had grown rocky with Samuel leaving the home in Port of Spain which he shared with La Rosa and returning to his family’s Arouca home to stay. Apart from their three children, both La Rosa and Samuel had children from other relationships.

Earlier on Tuesday, relatives said, La Rosa dropped off her children at the homes of her relatives.

She was seen walking towards Samuel’s house in Arouca with a bottle filled with an unknown substance which investigators believe may be the gas. Family members said this was not the first time one of the houses on the property was destroyed by fire and it was rebuilt recently only to be destroyed by La Rosa’s actions on Tuesday.