Shopkeeper charged with setting couple’s house on fire, resulting in $12-m damage
WESTMORELAND, Jamaica— A woman who was reportedly a part of a group of people who attacked a couple and set their house on fire in Cottage Road, Westmoreland has been charged.
Charged with arson is 59-year-old Venola Forrest, otherwise called ‘Sister’, a shopkeeper of Alma district, Grange Hill in the parish.
Reports from the Savanna-la-Mar police are that about 10:00 pm on Tuesday January 23, a man and a woman were outside their home when two vehicles drove up and stopped. A group of men alighted from the vehicles and started throwing stones at them. In a bid to escape injury the couple ran into their house.
The attackers reportedly left and later returned with Forrest in their company. They entered the couple’s house, where they smashed windows, destroyed several pieces of furniture, and then set the house on fire resulting in damage amounting to $12,000,000. The attackers then escaped in the waiting motor vehicles.
A report was later made to the police, and Forrest was taken into custody later the same day. She was charged after she was pointed out in an identification parade.
Forrest is scheduled to appear in the Savanna-la-Mar Parish Court on Tuesday, February 13.