Elderly woman dies in Laventille fire

An 84-year-old woman died in a fire at her Laven­tille home on Thurs­day night.

Po­lice said Elise Mor­ris, who used a wheel­chair, was on the up­per floor of her home at Robin­son Lane, Suc­cess Vil­lage, at 8.26 pm when the house caught fire.

Neigh­bours alert­ed the fire ser­vice as two chil­dren, aged three and ten, es­caped the home safe­ly.

Of­fi­cers from the Wright­son Road and Mor­vant Fire Sta­tions re­spond­ed and ex­tin­guished the blaze. Head­quar­ters North al­so as­sist­ed.

Mor­ris’s body was lat­er found on the ground floor in the south-west­ern sec­tion of the low­er storey. In­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect she may have fall­en af­ter the floor of the up­stairs bed­room col­lapsed dur­ing the fire.

The two-storey con­crete house, which had four bed­rooms, was not sup­plied with elec­tric­i­ty and was re­port­ed­ly lit main­ly by can­dles.

How­ev­er, of­fi­cials have not de­ter­mined the ex­act cause of the fire.

When fire of­fi­cers ar­rived, the house was al­ready well alight. Dam­age has been es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $700,000.

Oth­er oc­cu­pants of the house were iden­ti­fied as Ali­cia Mor­ris, 42, and Dario De Gannes, 28.

Of­fi­cers of the Port of Spain CID and the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries.