A Gas­par­il­lo woman al­leged­ly locked her 21-year-old daugh­ter and 10-year-old son in­side a room in her house be­fore set­ting it on fire yes­ter­day.

For­tu­nate­ly, the sib­lings es­caped through a win­dow with­out se­ri­ous in­jury, while a neigh­bour was able to ex­tin­guish the flames at the house on Dal­loo Road.

Af­ter leav­ing the house, the moth­er went to the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion and ad­mit­ted that she doused her daugh­ter’s bed­room with gas.

The woman, her two daugh­ters and her 10-year-old son live at the house but no one was at home when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day.

Her daugh­ter told po­lice that around 7.55 am, she was in her bed­room with her broth­er, a pupil of Gas­par­il­lo Hin­du School, when she had an ar­gu­ment with her moth­er, who told her to leave the house.

She told po­lice her moth­er hit her on her hand, picked up a gas con­tain­er, poured gas on her and her bed and set the bed ablaze.

Her moth­er, she claimed, then ran out of the room and locked it. The daugh­ter broke a win­dow in the bed­room through which she and her broth­er es­caped.

Mean­while, the moth­er, 46, a para­le­gal, got to the sta­tion around 8.20 am.

The woman re­port­ed that she had an ar­gu­ment with her daugh­ter and she told her to get out of the house. But she said her daugh­ter re­fused to leave.

The moth­er al­leged­ly told the of­fi­cers that dur­ing the ar­gu­ment, she sprin­kled gas on her daugh­ter’s bed and around the room and told her she would burn down the house if they couldn’t live in peace.

The woman claimed she then changed her cloth­ing and head­ed for the po­lice sta­tion.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with Ker­win Smart, a neigh­bour who tried to help the sib­lings yes­ter­day.

Smart had gone to a par­lour around 8 am be­fore head­ing out to work when he saw the smoke com­ing from the house.

“I was by the shop and I saw smoke com­ing from the thing of the house and I end up telling one of the neigh­bour smoke com­ing from the neigh­bour house. He say the woman just gone to work. I say like she leave a pot on the stove.”

He ini­tial­ly thought about go­ing to look for her in his car to let her know her house was on fire and bring her back but de­cid­ed against this.

While try­ing to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion, Smart saw the 21-year-old daugh­ter, who was cry­ing, and her broth­er com­ing from the back of the house.

“I saw the young la­dy and the small man came out here and she was hold­ing her hand, clutch­ing it with blood drip­ping with a piece of cloth,” he added.

Smart said she told him that her moth­er had chopped her.

“The state­ment she give the po­lice is that the (rel­a­tive) lock the room, throw gas on her, throw gas on the bed, throw a nap­kin or some­thing on­to the mat­tress where she and she lit­tle broth­er was on the bed there and lock the door and gone.”

Smart used a hose to out the blaze be­fore it could spread.

“It sad and shock­ing,” he said.

Of­fi­cers from the Gaparil­lo Po­lice Sta­tion seized a red gas con­tain­er and a white night­gown at the scene.

Po­lice ad­vised the daugh­ter to seek med­ical at­ten­tion for a cut to her right wrist. The 10-year-old broth­er was in­ter­viewed in the pres­ence of his fa­ther. Up to last evening, the moth­er was still in po­lice cus­tody.

In the last cou­ple of months, there have been two re­port­ed in­ci­dents where moth­ers have been charged in con­nec­tion with the deaths of their own chil­dren.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.