Two hard working single mothers, are out of a home tonight after fire gutted their residence this weekend. The Gillett women were spending the long weekend at a relatives home when they were called home on Monday to find their home on Brown street in Lake Independence destroyed. The fire is one thing, but arson is another, and they say someone burnt it down:
Marion Gillett - Fire Victim
"It was a shock I thought my whole world finish."
Melanie Gillett - Fire Victim
"The person who did it have no right to start the fire from my bedroom window because I didn't do that person anything. It really hurts me to know that that person had started the fire from my bedroom window and I have lost everything. Look at my chair that I had gotten from COURTS, I still have to pay for it. This is my mother's house and we just lost everything. "
Alfonso Noble
"Why would somebody want to burn down your house?"
Melanie Gillett
"I really don't know but this person is out there and he's looking right now and I would like to say that I am innocent. I did not do anything so why start the fire from my bedroom window. What if me and my daughter were in there? What would happen to us? I don't know what I'm going to do if I could go to work and try to be a strong person and go back to work and start my life all over again. Now my baby cannot stay with me because I have to stay here so that I could go to work and my baby is far away from me."
Melanie Gillett
"How are they so cold to do something like this to a poor woman like me who is just struggling? How is the person so cold to do a thing like this to leave me and my granddaughter and daughter out of door right now?"
Jules Vasquez
"The residents of the home, who were not there, are saying that someone set the fire. From initial observations is this allegation supported?"
Michael Middleton - Divisional Officer Fire Department
"We do not have any evidence to support that at this time."
Jules Vasquez
"They are saying also that someone, whom they know, may have had a motive to do this as an act of wickedness and bad mindedness."
Michael Middleton
"Yes, the possibility is there but at this moment, as I mentioned, we cannot determine that."
22 year old Melanie is the mother of a three year old and works at the Princess while her mother sells t-shirts at the tourism village. Anyone wanting to assist the family can call Melanie's cell phone at 600-2445.