And while the Fire Department has not determined what started the fire, you heard Doreen McKoy say that she feels her downstairs neighbor left the stove on. That neighbor is Yvonne Jenkins. You already heard her husband, Denton speak in her defense, but he wasn't at home. Well, this evening, his wife Yvonne accused on both sides of the street of being the fire starter, presented her own defense. She says she was cleaning the house and was putting her mattress outside to get some sun. And that's what caught fire, she gave her theory of how it happened.
Yvonne Jenkins, Fire Victim
"My theory is that she probably was lighting her stove and she threw the paper outside and it caught the mattress. That is where I pulled my mattress from inside because my niece told me she smelt something burning. I spun around immediately. When I spun around, I looked and I saw my mattress already in flames. It is already on flames.
So I went back inside and I asked her if she could get a bucket for me to get some water. She run and she got me a cup, she is a child and she doesn't know the difference, so she got a cup with a little bit of water and she threw it on the mattress but that didn't help. So I told her to leave it because everything is already burn so let's just go. I told her to run and not worry about me. She run outside.
When she ran outside, I went back into the bathroom and turned on all the water. I opened up all the waters and I tried to get a bucket to throw the water on the mattress but it was already out of control. I tried throwing the mattress over the stove to see if it would have out, all kind of scenarios I was trying Jules but it just didn't work. It didn't work out.
The fact remains is that the neighbors, well one of the neighbors is saying that I was cooking which is completely wrong. I wasn't even cooking. I do not cook on Fridays. Fridays is out, I do not cook on Fridays. That is completely out. So I was not cooking. I would not purposely burn down a house that contains our household items and that is where I have to lay my head. I just want to clear that point there where everyone is saying that I was cooking and I left the house and I ran out the house."
We'll let you know what the Fire Department determines when its investigation is complete. Both Jenkins and McKoy were tenants.
