The two men who were convicted last month of murder arising from the burning to death of three children in a house at Port Henderson Lane, St Catherine, on September 14, 2004, will be sentenced on December 18.

Sentencing was set for Wednesday but had to be put off because the social enquiry reports were not ready.

A Home Circuit Court jury convicted fishermen Rohan 'Pig Seed' McCarty and Ricardo 'Blacks' Britton, both of Port Henderson Lane, of the triple murder.

The Crown, represented by Ann Marie Feurtado-Richards, assistant deputy director of public prosecutions, led evidence that on September 14, 2004, the men threw gasolene around Pansy Henry's three-bedroom wooden house and used a bottle torch to set it ablaze.

Henry said about 1:15 a.m. she heard something like liquid being poured around her house. She looked through a window and saw the two accused. She said McCarty had a bottle torch and threw it on her house, and that when she called the men by their aliases, they ran.

She said when the house caught fire, her five-year-old twin boys, Tyrique and Tyrone, and her three-year-old daughter, Moesha Lee, were burnt to death.

Henry also claimed that the day before she had a dispute with the men and they threatened to burn her out.

Investigations by Detective Inspector Leighton Blackstock and Detective Sergeant Victor Smith led to the men's arrest.

The men denied being involved in the incident. They said they were sleeping when they heard the house was on fire.

They were convicted of committing murders in the furtherance of arson to a dwelling house.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com