House burnt down after man gives ‘bun’
Last Tuesday will go down as the worst day in the life of Alvin Smalling. Moments after he claims to have been beaten with a stick by his girlfriend, who caught him in bed with another woman, Smalling, 52, watched helplessly as his house was burnt to the ground.
“She come and start beat mi with a stick but because mi know say mi did wrong, mi nuh say nutten. Then, she went in the house and come out a bawl fire,” Smalling said. “She say a nuh she do it.”
An inspector at the Half-Way Tree Police Station told THE STAR that Smalling’s girlfriend is not being treated as a suspect.
“None of the statements that we got implicated her, so no, she is not a suspect,” the inspector said. THE STAR has not been able to contact Smalling’s girlfriend. Meanwhile, Smalling, who is now sleeping in a shack he put together on the location where the fire occured, off Molynes Road in St Andrew, said that he cannot envision how he is going to get back on his feet.
“Boi, I don’t know. Right now is the same clothes mi inna from last week,” Smalling said.
The shoemaker said that he and his girlfriend were in an altercation before the fire started.
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“From she see me with the lady in the room, she just get upset and a tek actions towards it,” Smalling said. “I know I hurt her, enuh, and mi never waa do that. Mi just never know that she was coming home that evening because she was at her father’s house.”
Smalling said that he has not seen his girlfriend or the 10-monthold baby boy they have together since the incident.
Standing beside the shack, Smalling said that the woman he cheated on his girlfriend with has visited him several times since the incident, but does not have a spare room at her house for him to rest his head.
Smalling’s daughter, Latoya, who was living at the house with her three children, said that she has to be sleeping at friends’ houses.
“Every night we have to beg someone to put us up,” Latoya said. “Mi baby have to be staying up at my sister and my son stay with him godmother.” She said: “I have to be borrowing clothes.” Persons wanting to assist the family can contact Latoya at 1-876529-1206.