The two women burnt to death after criminals threw a bottle bomb into their homes had nothing to do with the man being sought nor were they related to him. They were innocent residents of Cross Roads, St Ann.
Here is what happened, based on reports from residents, neighbours, and police personnel.
Early morning before daylight Sunday, members of the Cross Road and Keith communities saw two men wearing masks and walking in the general directions toward where a man, we will call Daniel, lived. The men, who had parked their car some distance away, went to the house kicked in a door and entered through a window they had smashed. Daniel ran from the house, leaving a younger man inside. His aunt, the home owner was not in as she has not been staying there at night. A relative of Daniel’s a 20 year old high school graduate and hotel worker escaped from the men after one of them grabbed him. He tore himself away and ran first to a house next door, knocked and tried without success to kick in the door to get to safety. After that he ran, scaling fences and through bushes, away from the community. But the men were really after Daniel and chased him up the slopes toward where the two sisters lived alone. The men had no gun.
This was after 4 in the morning, residents told The Times Daniel escaped their sight and they seemed to believe he had entered the James’ house on the hill. Meanwhile in the commotion, the 20 year old who had escaped the clutches of one of the men ran to another house and tried to knock then tried to kick down the door to find safety. The occupants, three women woke up didn’t know what was happening and decided to wait it out together, until daylight.
Up at the house on the hill where the James sisters lived, the two ‘collectors’ started to beat down the grill and doors, calling out for Daniel to come out and give them their money. By this time, Daniel was in “an outside kitchen” waiting. No one knows if the women inside — at least the younger, since the elder Janet James could barely speak — answered the men beating down the door.
Apparently, the fire swept quickly through the house and the women moved away from it to the bed room and to the kitchen where they were overcome by the smoke. They died, their bodies found burnt beyond recognition, head to toe. Everything in the house was destroyed.
It’s not clear what Daniel did as the women burned and screamed or whether he ran away from the kitchen by then. But the screams of one of them could be heard 100 yards away in the direction of Keith, according to a resident who at 4:30 started calling out others to go see.
Eulalee Irving, a close friend of the James said she and two other women continue to pray because they were lucky. They know their house could have been firebombed if the man had run in their direction. Ms Irving and her friends have only good memories of the James sisters who were with them up to Saturday. One of the women shaking her head about what happened held up a plastic bag of apples and fruit that Janet James had brought for them just over 12 hours earlier. It was, she said, “Just another act of Frances’ (Janet) kindness.” “Two a them one time,” Ms Irving said, holding her head. “Two innocent people, it not easy. Don’t know when we will get over this.”
