Seventy-two-year-old Lucene Bishop’s world has been turned upside down once again.
In 2007, she lost one of her sons, Kenrick Harewood, in the tragic Joe’s River bus accident in St Joseph during Crop Over. He was 30 at the time.
Yesterday, she lost two more sons, Mark and Ricky Harewood, who perished in an early morning blaze at Fairview, Christ Church.
The brothers, 42 and 43, respectively, lived in a wood and galvanised structure attached to their mother’s stone and timber house.
While the main house sustained only water damage, the attached structure was destroyed in the blaze, which occurred around 12:45 a.m. Firefighters discovered the bodies while putting out the fire.
On the scene yesterday morning, Bishop was the picture of a broken woman and too distraught to speak. The tears flowed as she stared off into the distance. She was surrounded by family and neighbours who offered support.
Her remaining son, Andrew Harewood, 47, who spoke on behalf of the family, said he was unsure of how the fire started and everything happened quickly. He was asleep at the time.
He said the neighbours called the fire service but it was too late when it arrived.
Harewood described his brothers as “really cool guys” who didn’t give any trouble.
Harewood said his brothers also kept to themselves a lot and he was only able to provide a picture of Mark in the form of his National Identification Card. He said Ricky always kept his possessions on him so his ID card and any other photo identification would have been destroyed.
Neighbour Maureen Bute said the entire community was still in shock over the tragic passing of the brothers.
Bute said the structure burnt too quickly for anyone to do anything.
Two fire tenders, one each from Bridgetown and Worthing, and nine fire officers responded. It took an hour and 48 minutes to bring the fire under control.
Police said they would conduct forensic tests to definitively identity the two bodies.
The last death in a house fire occurred on April 17 last year, when 56-year-old Cedric McCarthy perished in his Free Hill, Black Rock, St Michael home. Neighbours were unsuccessful in trying to save him. (DB)
