A WARNING IGNORED? Friends said Dean Field had said “someone was watching him” in the days before the fire, but people thought he was just stressed about his divorce. Now police have obtained footage from a neighbor’s camera that shows a strange figure

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In the wake of the Sanson inferno that claimed four lives on November 15, whispers that once seemed like the ramblings of a man unraveling under marital strain have morphed into a chilling focal point for investigators. Friends of Dean Michael Field, 36, now recall his eerie premonition: “Someone’s watching me,” he’d mutter in the days leading up to the blaze, eyes darting to shadowed corners of his Sanson Hall Road home. Dismissed as paranoia fueled by mounting divorce fears—despite Chelsey Field’s insistence they were still together—these warnings take on sinister weight following a bombshell revelation. Police have secured grainy footage from a neighbor’s security camera, timestamped November 14, capturing a “strange figure” lurking near the property under the cover of dusk. Cloaked in hoodie and shadows, the silhouette pauses, unmoving, before vanishing into the paddocks. Was this a harbinger of the horror to come, or a phantom born of Dean’s fraying mind? As the homicide probe widens, Sanson—a tight-knit rural enclave—braces for the possibility that the family’s nightmare had an unseen architect.

The footage, obtained November 26 from a Ring doorbell camera two doors down, emerges as a pivotal piece in a puzzle already riddled with enigmas: the 11-second audio of a child’s desperate “Dad, stop!” clanging with metal; the half-burned note in Dean’s unburned hand—”I didn’t want it to end like this…”—eroded by an anomalous acid; and petrol trails suggesting deliberate arson. Manawatū Area Commander Inspector Ross Grantham, in a terse November 27 briefing, confirmed the video’s seizure but offered scant details: “We’re reviewing all timelines. No arrests at this stage.” The clip, leaked in blurred form to X (formerly Twitter) by user @ManawatuMystery on November 27—garnering 200,000 views in hours—shows the figure at 8:42 p.m., a lanky shadow against the fading light, lingering 20 meters from the Fields’ gate. No face, no vehicle, just an unnatural stillness that locals liken to “a post frozen mid-stride.” Forensic enhancement at ESR labs in Porirua is underway, aiming to sharpen the image and trace any gait patterns via AI software. “It doesn’t move like Dean,” a source close to the analysis whispered to Stuff.co.nz. “Too deliberate, too external.”

Dean’s cryptic alerts surfaced in casual chats over the preceding week, friends say, painting a portrait of a man teetering on isolation’s edge. At the Feilding pub on November 10, mechanic mate Barry Wilkins recalls Dean nursing a Steinlager, voice low: “Feels like eyes on the back of my neck, mate. Out in the driveway, at night.” Wilkins chalked it to stress—the couple’s heated rows over custody, finances pinched by Dean’s sporadic gigs, and Chelsey’s talk of space. “Thought he was cracking under the divorce talk,” Wilkins told RNZ, regret thickening his accent. “Chelsey’d left for a night or two before; he was gutted, saying he’d lose the kids.” No threats, no specifics—just that gnawing sense of surveillance. Another pal, a fellow tradie from Palmerston North, overheard Dean on November 12 at a site in Bulls: “Paranoia’s got me jumping at ghosts. Someone’s clocking the house.” Laughed off as “dad burnout,” these murmurs now echo like ignored klaxons. Chelsey, in her November 26 interview, hadn’t heard them directly but sensed his withdrawal: “He was distant, checking windows at odd hours. I figured work woes.”

The figure’s appearance reframes the timeline. November 14: Dean alone with August, 7; Hugo, 5; and Goldie, 1, after Chelsey’s morning errand. The camera, angled toward the street, captures the intruder at twilight, post-dinner hour when kids’ laughter might have spilled out. Neighbors, roused by the fire’s sirens the next day, pore over their own feeds—nothing conclusive, but a shared chill. “We all have cams now, post-burglaries last summer,” says retiree Helen Kaur, whose device nabbed the clip. “Thought it was a fox at first, but no—human shape, watching the door.” Kaur, 62, handed it over voluntarily November 16, her statement noting the figure’s “odd poise, like sizing up the place.” Online, X erupts: #SansonWatcher trends with 50,000 posts, theories ranging from a jilted lover to corporate spies over Dean’s garage debts. “Not suicide—stalker setup!” blasts @KiwiTruthSeeker, retweeted 5,000 times. Skeptics counter: “Dean hallucinating his guilt,” citing the half-note’s regret.

This twist collides with mounting evidence of internal torment. Autopsies, finalized November 25, confirm the children succumbed to smoke inhalation post-blunt trauma—consistent with the audio’s metallic thud—while Dean died of a self-inflicted wound, unburned in the bedroom. The acid on his note? Traced to a Feilding supplier Dean visited November 13 for brake fluid, but quantities suggest excess for “erasure.” Chelsey’s texts reveal the November 15 row: “You’re scaring them with your moods,” she typed at 11:20 a.m. His reply: “Better scared of me than them watching us fall apart.” “Them”? Investigators now probe if “them” meant imagined voyeurs or marital foes. Chelsey, holed up in a Feilding safehouse funded by $320,000 in donations, grapples with the shift. “If someone was out there… did Dean lash out thinking they came for us?” she pondered aloud in a follow-up call with NZ Herald, voice raw. “Or was it all in his head, and we’re chasing ghosts?”

Sanson, population 2,000, pulses with unease. The highway’s hum resumes, but whispers thread through the Four Square and school gates. Mount Biggs School, where Hugo attended, flies its flag at half-mast, counselors on-site for the 300 pupils. Community barbecues, once weekly staples, now host vigils—yellow ribbons for August’s sketches, blue streamers for Hugo’s jokes, gold blooms for Goldie’s curls. The Givealittle page updates daily: “Justice for my angels—whatever it takes,” Chelsey writes November 28, proceeds earmarked for CCTV grants in rural homes. “No family ignored again.” Friends like Wilkins form a support ring, delivering casseroles and walks with Chelsey’s surviving dog, a border collie named Kip. “Dean’s words haunt me,” Wilkins admits. “What if we’d listened?”

Nationally, the footage fuels a media storm. TVNZ’s Tonight screens enhanced stills November 27, experts debating: Dr. Lena Hart, criminologist at Victoria University, posits “escalating paranoia in filicide cases—30% involve perceived threats.” Counterpoint from profiler Dr. Kai Rotonu: “Could be opportunistic—arsonist casing.” X amplifies the divide; @SansonSleuth threads dissect the clip frame-by-frame: “Hoodie logo? Matches a local gang tag?”—debunked by police as artifact glare. Reddit’s r/UnresolvedMysteries NZ subreddit swells to 10,000 members, timelines pinning the figure to a white utility van spotted November 13. No plates, no leads—yet. Grantham appeals: “Tips welcome, anonymity assured.” Hotline calls spike 40%, per November 28 stats.

For Chelsey, the specter personalizes the abyss. “August would’ve drawn that shadow a monster,” she shares, clutching his last sketch—a family under sunny skies. “Hugo’d joke it away; Goldie’d just hug tighter.” Their funeral’s bright hues linger in her wardrobe, a defiant wardrobe against gray grief. Dean’s private service November 25 drew family only, eulogies sealing his complexity: “Loved his kids fiercely, lost in the fight.” No mention of watchers. As ESR’s gait analysis drops December 2, whispers grow: accomplice? Rival? Or Dean’s projection, the “someone” his unraveling self?

Sanson’s paddocks stretch empty now, but eyes—real or imagined—linger. The figure’s pause on that feed, 24 hours pre-flames, begs: ignored warning, or invented dread? Chelsey’s final words to reporters: “If he was watched, so were we. Don’t let it end in questions.” The probe presses, footage frozen in time, urging Sanson—and a nation—to see what was there all along.