What kind of beef would propel a woman to set another woman's house - filled with six children - on fire in the middle of the night?
Something to do with a man.
Yesterday, police arrested Zakeeyah Harper, 22, of Cornwall Street near Ontario, in Kensington, for the 3:45 a.m. Saturday blaze at the home of Jamika Clark.
The fire at the home on Clementine Street near Jasper killed three of Clark's six children and left her and two other children hospitalized.
Harper is charged with with arson, three counts of murder, four counts of aggravated assault and other crimes.
Police said the father of Clark's children and some other factors were the roots of the animosity.
"It was not just a man thing," said Homicide Capt. Richard Ross, giving little detail about why Clark and the accused didn't get along. "This was all over something stupid. People could have walked away."
Authorities believe that Harper played a role in setting the fire, which began on a couch. Fire officials said the flames quickly swept from the Kensington home's first floor to the second floor, where the children were sleeping.
Clark, 26, managed to toss her 2-year-old daughter, C.C., the youngest of the children, out of a window into the arms of a neighbor. C.C. is now living with family.
But Clark could not rescue her other children and jumped from a second-floor window.
Mahogany Porter, 7; Shaune Porter, 5, and Sharonda Porter, 4, died in the fire. Jonte Porter, 8 and Quadere Porter, 5, and Clark remained in critical condition yesterday.
Fire officials said the two smoke alarms in the Clark home were missing batteries.
Distributed by the Associated Press
