Elizabeth Gonzales
An 80-year-old woman with dementia escaped injury after a fire gutted her home in Bon Accord on Thursday morning.
Around 9 am, neighbours saw Elowise McLatchie-Wills burning a brown envelope believed to contain court documents. They said she used liquid from a black keg to start the fire and later argued with a relative before re-entering the house.
Moments later, the one-storey concrete home caught fire. McLatchie-Wills walked out of the burning building unhurt.
Fire officers from the Scarborough station responded, but the house was about 80 per cent destroyed. Damage was estimated at $972,000.
At a relative’s request, McLatchie-Wills was taken to the Scarborough Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
