A Louisiana man is suspected of deliberately setting his ex-wife’s house ablaze earlier this week killing their three children in the process.
The blaze was reported at around 11:55 p.m. by a New Orleans mother who claimed that her ex-husband, Joseph Washington, started a fire at her America Street home while she was outside.
“He’s screaming on the phone. I hear the kids screaming. Y’all are just going to have to break through the door. Don’t let anything happen please!” the woman said in the frantic 911 call.
By the time officers and firefighters arrived, the home was fully engulfed in flames. A 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy were first extradited from the burning structure and sent to a hospital where they died.
A 3-year-old boy was found further inside the home. He was declared dead at the scene.
Surveillance footage from a neighbor’s home showed a man leaving the scene in a vehicle shortly after flames erupted at the rear of the home.
Washington was arrested after he tried to flee police, jumping from an interstate overpass.
“I can’t imagine the horror of this,” a friend of the family said. “Those kids were so young. His own children. It was just so evil what was displayed here. I just had to come out.”
