Mother Charged After All Five Of Her Children Die In Illinois House Fire

A mother of five is facing criminal charges in connection to the deaths of her young children, who died in an apartment fire after being left home alone.

The 34-year-old mother, Sabrina M. Dunigan, of East St. Louis, Illinois, was charged on Wednesday with five counts of endangering the life or health of a child after all five of her kids — all under the age of 10 — died in the Aug. 6 fire.

In the charging documents, Greg Vespa, an investigator with the Illinois state fire marshal’s office, said that Dunigan endangered her children after she left them home alone and “knowingly caused or permitted a child to be placed in circumstances that endangered the child’s life or health.”

Dunigan had left the house at 3:00 in the morning to pick her boyfriend up from work.  When she returned, she found her home in flames. The distraught mother said she suffered burns on her arms and feet, trying to rescue her children but could not save them.