POLICE and the Guyana Fire Service are investigating the circumstances surrounding an early morning fire which left three dead and a two-storey house flattened at Beterverwagting Line Top, East Coast Demerara, on Sunday.Dead are 36-year-old Lenard Pollard; his common-law wife, Latoya Telford, 26; and their 18-month-old daughter, Nakasia Pollard.
According to reports, Telford and Pollard had lived for years at the house, and had three children, namely, Nakasia; another daughter aged four; and a three-year-old son.
When the Guyana Chronicle visited the scene of the fire Sunday morning, the Police had already cordoned off the area, and were treating it as a ‘crime scene’.

Residents in the area suspect that this was no ordinary fire; they rather suspect it was part of an elaborate murder/suicide plot born of jealousy, since the couple was having relationship issues, with Telford being accused of having an affair.
One eyewitness said the fire started around 02:45 hours Sunday in a bedroom and try as some neighbours might, they could not get into the house.
SOMETHING AMISS
Sensing that something was amiss, having not heard any cries for help, one neighbour kicked open a door, but the smoke was so thick, it prevented him from going any further.
It is believed that Pollard killed the woman and their baby, before hanging himself with a rope, which, according to reports, the police later discovered.
Pollard’s brother, who lived in a room on the lower flat of the house, said on Nightly News that even though he knew the couple was having quarrels, he never heard his brother threaten the woman.
Though neighbours described Pollard as a good man, they said he hardly worked. Some said, too, that while he and his brother often fought, they’ve never seen him abuse Telford.
They say that at the time of the fire, Pollard’s brother was not at home, as he had already left for work.
One man said he was at home around 03:00 hours when his twin brother telephoned and told him the Pollards’ house was on fire. By this time, he said, he’d heard the siren as the fire tender rushed to the scene, but by the time he got there, the house had already been consumed.
One of the dead woman’s aunts told the Guyana Chronicle on Sunday that one of the reasons the couple was having problems was because Pollard could not keep a job, and as such the strain was always left on her niece.
The woman said when her niece first moved into the house, it was in such bad shape that she had to use her own money to make it habitable; and that after she’d done so, Pollard’s family started fighting the couple for the house, which, according to residents in the village, belong to relatives who live overseas.

ASKED TO LEAVE
The woman said her niece was asked by her mother-in-law to leave, and take her children with her. She said that last November, her niece did just that, and “peacefully”.
At the time of moving, the aunt said, Telford was working at Qualfon, and her eldest daughter attending the Beterverwagting Nursery School. Since moving, however, she had the child transferred to a school on the West Coast, and secured a new job at Teleperformance in Georgetown.

And while she conceded that her niece never complained of being abused by Pollard, she said their relationship was fraught with pressure from her ‘in-laws’.
“We don’t know if he used to beat her or not; she never tell us. But it was not really a nice relationship; he was lazy, and she told him he has to get a work,” the woman said, adding:
“My niece go and fix that house; bring it to a home; do the best that she could. Then the mother and the brother them suddenly wanted her to move out of the house.”
“His mother told her that she got to come out of the house and give the other brother the house.”
The woman said that since her niece moved, Pollard would visit her often at La Parfaite Harmonie, on the West Bank, where she’d gone to live with her mother, but that the latter was never comfortable with the arrangement.
She said things came to a head recently, and the Ministry of Social Protection Welfare Department had to be called in, as Pollard kept saying that he was not comfortable with his children not living with him.
KEEP MOLESTING HER
“He would always keep molesting her,” she said. “Every time she goes home, he always find heself ‘over the river’… He took her to the Welfare Office and said that he is not getting to see his children.”
The woman said Telford was at her place on Saturday but left to stop at Pollard’s home before going to visit a friend. She said her niece was hesitant about visiting Pollard’s home, turning back twice before finally making up her mind. She left two of the children and only took the baby.
“She lie down on the bed and played with her two children; she always got the baby with her,” Telford’s aunt said, adding:
“She had doubts about going. She walk out, she turn back; she walk out, she turn back. She was hesitant to go.”
Meanwhile, Telford’s mother, Rachel, an employee of Woodlands Hospital, told reporters that the deceased was her eldest daughter, and that she had been living with her since last year after Pollard’s mother asked her to move out with her children so that her other son could fully occupy the house.
“I don’t know anything, because I left to go to work. She was getting problem with her ‘child-father’; she hadn’t said anything to me,” Rachael said, adding:
“The brother-in-law and dem was getting problem with the house, and so she decided to come by me and live, because she say the mother-in-law say they must move out.”
“I say you could come; I have a room for you there. She did come last year.”
The woman said that sometime Saturday, her daughter told her she was going to visit her grandfather.
“I leave her there; I don’t know what else happened,” the woman said amidst tears.