A young couple died alongside their newborn baby after a stranger set the townhouse they were living in on fire.
19-year-old Abbey Forrest and 28-year-old Inda Sohal passed away in a house fire in Point Cook, Melbourne, Australia, just 19 days after welcoming their baby into their family.
The devastating fire took place on Wednesday morning after 46-year-old Jenny Hayes set fire to the townhouse that the family lived in.
Following the family’s death, the woman has been charged with murder and arson resulting in death.
While Hayes is believed to have started the fire deliberately, the authorities confirmed that she was a stranger to the victims that died in the fire.
According to the reports, the 46-year-old set fire to the home after getting in an argument with the person living on the first floor. The blaze then resulted in the family of Sohal and Forrest, who were living on the second floor, getting trapped inside the burning building.
“We’re right behind so that could have been us… you don’t want to imagine it was us, you don’t want it to be (anyone),” Lockie Allen, one of the neighbors, recalled as he explained how he and his father ran out of their home when the fire erupted.
“We tried everything. We didn’t know what else to do. We couldn’t run into the house,” another neighbor named Jemil recalled in an interview with The Herald Sun as he said he’s “sick to his stomach” due to not being able to save the family that was heard screaming inside the house.
“It’s kind of horrifying, gruesome and I just feel sick to the stomach knowing there was someone in that house. It’s pretty terrifying.”
Following the tragic incident, Abbey’s sister, Emily, started a GoFundMe page with the intention of raising enough funds to give the family a proper funeral.
“I just know that she would just turn around and just tell me to try and remain really strong,” Emily said.
“She’s always been a really brave person. She had the biggest, boldest personality. She was great. I’ll always cherish the memories that I had growing up with her. She was my only sibling.”
As the heartbroken sister added, Abbey and her family just moved into their new home to start a new life when the tragedy happened.
“It should be the perfect time of their life, and now this awful tragedy has happened,” she said.
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