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WILKES-BARRE &#8212;Two women in Preston Bonnett&#8217;s life took the stand on Thursday, telling opposite sides of the same story.Neither painted a flattering portrait of the man facing homicide and arson charges.The mother of three young boys who died in a fire Bonnett is accused of setting took the stand in the afternoon, lashing out at him.&#8220;You had no right to take my children,&#8221; Susan Major shouted at Bonnett.Bonnett, 28, stands accused of starting a Laflin house fire in October 2017 that took the lives of Erik Dupree, 16, Devon Major, 12, and Ezekial Major, 7. Bonnett is facing one count each of homicide and arson for each child.In emotional testimony, Major described the last moments she spent with her sons, as well as the horror of arriving home to discover the fire&#8217;s deadly aftermath.&#8220;I made it to the grass; I saw the black shroud covering where my son died,&#8221; Major said, weeping.Thursday&#8217;s proceedings began with testimony from Bonnett&#8217;s girlfriend, Tyla Griffin, who said &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to believe&#8221; Bonnett had committed the crime, &#8220;but the evidence is the evidence and the facts are the facts.&#8221;Bonnett did not visibly respond to Major, who was gently admonished by county Judge Michael T. Vough to respond only to questions posed to her.Girlfriend&#8217;s testimonyGriffin told jurors on Thursday that she doesn&#8217;t want to believe Preston Bonnett committed the crimes he&#8217;s accused of, but she said things just don&#8217;t add up.Griffin&#8217;s testimony dominated proceedings Thursday morning. She told Assistant District Attorney Thomas Hogans the pair started dating in December 2016, later moving in together.After the pair were forced to leave their Scranton apartment, Griffin suggested they move in with Major, who Bonnett had introduced to her. Griffin said she was hesitant about this &#8212; saying she had previously found photos of Major performing sex acts on Bonnett &#8212; but she said it was their only option at the time.After only living in the house for about two weeks, Griffin said Major kicked the pair out, suggesting Major was jealous of their relationship. Griffin said Major told her and Bonnett to leave, only giving them a small amount of their belongings back.Griffin said this caused a turn in Bonnett, saying he couldn&#8217;t let go of the material things.&#8220;There&#8217;d be days where he&#8217;d just be like, &#8216;I want my stuff, I f&#8212;-in&#8217; hate her,&#8221; she said.Griffin said this is when Bonnett began to make comments about burning Major&#8217;s home down, but she said she believed he meant it jokingly.&#8220;I thought it was a joke, thought it was like when you get mad at your mom and say, &#8216;I hope your car crashes,&#8217;&#8221; she said.On the night of the fire, she and Bonnett were arrested, initially charged just with crimes related to the credit card scheme.Griffin said that in the interrogation room, she began to be questioned about Susan Major. When she asked what Major had to do with it, she was told about the fire at the home. &#8220;I could never imagine that he could do something like that,&#8221; Griffin said. &#8220;To think he could even have something to do with something like that didn&#8217;t make sense to me.&#8221;But Hogans showed Griffin flyers that had been posted on the home&#8217;s windows in the days leading up to the trial, flyers that had a photo of Major performing oral sex on a man, along with threatening messages to text a number or the writer &#8220;would be back.&#8221;Griffin acknowledged it was the same photo she had found on Bonnett&#8217;s computer. Additionally, she identified the writing on the flyer as Bonnett&#8217;s, and said the phone number was a secondary number he used.While being cross-examined by Mary Deady, one of Bonnett&#8217;s attorneys, Griffin seemed to be of two minds on whether Bonnett is guilty of the crimes he&#8217;s charged with.&#8220;Only him and God knows what happened that night,&#8221; she said after first saying that she believes what&#8217;s happening in the court &#8220;isn&#8217;t true.&#8221;But shortly after, she said that she was there because she needed closure, saying she&#8217;s still in love with Bonnett and has a child with him, but that the evidence, including video of him at the home immediately before the fire, is overwhelming.&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to believe it but the evidence is the evidence and the facts are the facts,&#8221; she said.Griffin didn&#8217;t look at Bonnett on her way out of the courtroom.Mother takes standAfter a lunch break, the boys&#8217; mother took the stand. And while Major&#8217;s story had some significant differences from Griffin&#8217;s, many of the details were the same.She said she first met Bonnett after posting a Craigslist ad looking for a friend. Bonnett offered her some money to get involved with the credit card scheme, with Major saying she was initially unsure of what it was.Her involvement slowly grew, until both she and Bonnett were arrested at a Turkey Hill in Kingston for buying gift cards with a fake credit card.After their arrest, Major told Bonnett not to contact her, repeatedly blocking numerous numbers of his.&#8220;He somehow would find me,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I felt he ruined my life. I went from being a career woman and a registered nurse and making six figures to having to go to jail. But he wouldn&#8217;t leave me alone.&#8221;She was contacted again later, in June 2017, when Bonnett told her of his being forced to leave his Scranton apartment with Griffin. Major allowed them to briefly live with her, saying she knew what it was like to be homeless.Major said she asked the pair to leave as her children were uncomfortable with the arrangement. She said she left most of the items belonging to Bonnett and Griffin on the back porch. She did say she sold some incidental items of Bonnett&#8217;s since the pair didn&#8217;t pay rent.Major said an ex-girlfriend of Bonnett&#8217;s came to her home asking for Bonnett&#8217;s items. When Major had nothing to give her, that&#8217;s when the harassment she faced grew in severity.In mid-October 2017, a 40-ounce beer bottle was thrown through her window, followed soon after by the flyers.On the evening of the fire, Major said she was out with a friend when she started to receive frantic calls from friends, telling her of the fire.She headed home, and that&#8217;s when she saw the shroud on the grass.Major recalled the last moments she spent with her sons. Her oldest son, Erik, spoke to her through the camera system the family set up following the harassment that allegedly came from Bonnett.&#8220;&#8216;Mom, you look beautiful,&#8217;&#8221; Major recalled Erik saying. &#8220;&#8216;Have a great evening.&#8217;&#8221;She never spoke to him again.During cross-examination by Deady, the defense attorney began asking why Major did not return items to Bonnett, but Major said because one of those items &#8212; the credit card counterfeiting machine &#8212; was illegal, so she had no reason to do anything other than turn it over to police.&#8220;He wants to say I stole from him, but how many people did he steal from?&#8221; Major said.Deady reminded Major of her former involvement in the the scheme.&#8220;I made a mistake I will never forget,&#8221; Major shot back. &#8220;Preston Bonnett ruined my life before killing my kids.&#8221;Unlike Griffin, Major kept her eyes locked on Bonnett while being led out of the courtroom at the conclusion of her testimony.Testimony continues this morning.<style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_Bonnett-2c-Preston-9.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Bonnett</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_Bonnett-2c-Preston-9.jpg</photo0><caption0>Bonnett</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_LaflinFire2.cmyk_-2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">A woman walks past a house on Oakwood Drive in Laflin Borough following an October 2017 fire that resulted in the deaths of three youths. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_LaflinFire2.cmyk_-2.jpg</photo1><caption1>A woman walks past a house on Oakwood Drive in Laflin Borough following an October 2017 fire that resulted in the deaths of three youths. </caption1><photoCredit1>Times Leader file photo </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Dead boys&#8217; mother lashes out at arson defendant</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Patrick Kernanpkernan@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Patrick Kernan at 570-991-6386 or on Twitter @PatKernan</shirttailMeta></div>

‘You had no right to take my children,’ dead boys’ mother shouts at arson defendant