The flames that ravaged a Sanson family home on November 15, claiming the lives of Dean Michael Field, 36, and his three children—August James, 7; Hugo John, 5; and Goldie May Iris, 1—did not erupt in the chaos of the living room as initially surmised. In a stunning pivot that upends the homicide investigation, police confirmed today that the fire originated in the master bedroom, the very room where Field’s body was discovered, unburned, beside a half-charred note reading, “I didn’t want it to end like this…” As forensic details crystallize, Chelsey Field, the children’s mother and the family’s sole survivor, delivered a bombshell account in an exclusive interview with TVNZ’s 1News, one that reframes the entire tragedy in an instant: Dean, she claims, locked himself and the children in the bedroom during their final, furious argument, barricading the door with a metal bedframe—echoing the chilling “clang” from the 11-second audio—before dousing the space with petrol and igniting it in a deliberate act of despair. “He said, ‘If I can’t have them, no one will,'” Chelsey recounted, her voice fracturing the airwaves. “I was outside, pounding on the door, begging. That’s when I heard Goldie scream.” This revelation, corroborated by fresh scene analysis, catapults the probe from potential external foul play to a locked-room inferno of paternal anguish, leaving Sanson—and the nation—reeling from the intimacy of the horror.
Manawatū Area Commander Inspector Ross Grantham unveiled the fire’s epicenter during a midday press conference at Palmerston North police headquarters, flanked by fire investigators from Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ). “Accelerant traces—petrol from a household jerry can—concentrate in the master bedroom,” Grantham stated, his tone clipped against a backdrop of media flashes. “The point of origin is confirmed there, spreading rapidly to the hallway and beyond.” This contradicts early reconstructions positing the living room as ground zero, spurred by the audio clip’s timestamp (2:19 p.m.) and the metallic thud interpreted as a dropped tool amid violence. Instead, the bedroom’s configuration—a rear addition with a single egress door—explains the blaze’s ferocity: flames fueled by bedding and curtains, smoke billowing through vents, trapping occupants in seconds. Dean’s body, recovered November 16 in the room’s northeast corner, showed no thermal injuries, autopsy revealing a self-inflicted neck wound from a utility knife found nearby. The children, autopsied November 25, perished from combined blunt force (consistent with the audio’s plea: “Dad, stop!”) and inhalation, their small forms clustered near the door—pushing against it, forensics suggest, in futile escape.
The half-burned note, clutched in Dean’s right hand and partially dissolved by that anomalous acid (now traced to a Feilding welding supplier he visited November 13), gains tragic clarity in this light. Handwriting experts at ESR affirmed its authenticity late yesterday, the legible fragment a prelude to obliterated lines speculatively pleading, “…the voices won’t stop… forgive me…” via stylometric matches to Dean’s journals. Placed amid the bedroom’s wreckage—scorched mattress, melted lamp—the artifact paints a man cornered by his psyche, scrawling amid rising smoke. The acid splash, deliberate per lab reconstruction, targeted the note’s lower half, as if Dean sought to bury deeper confessions. “It was his final barrier,” a profiler whispered to RNZ. “Erasing the why, leaving only the what-if.”
Chelsey Field’s account, aired at 6 p.m. on 1News in a segment titled “Locked in Flames,” detonates prior narratives of marital drift or shadowy stalkers. Seated in a Feilding community center, yellow ribbons—August’s favorite color—pinned to her blouse, the 34-year-old former educator unraveled the morning’s unraveling with forensic precision, texts and timelines in hand. “We’d argued before—over money, the kids’ routines—but this was volcanic,” she began, eyes fixed on a photo of Hugo mid-laugh. At 11:45 a.m., Dean, home from a half-shift at the garage, snapped over Goldie’s teething cries: “You’re turning them against me!” Texts flew: Chelsey’s “We need space, for their sake” met his “You’ll take them and leave me nothing.” By 1:50 p.m., escalation: Dean herded the children into the master bedroom for “quiet time,” Chelsey trailing with groceries. “He slammed the door, I heard the lock click—then the scrape, like metal on wood. The bedframe, wedged under the knob.” Her fists hammered; inside, muffled sobs, then August’s voice: “Mum?” Seconds later, the audio’s echo—”Dad, stop!”—and the thud, metal yielding as Dean, perhaps, shoved the frame firmer.
“I smelled petrol through the crack—jerry from the shed,” Chelsey continued, timeline synced to her phone’s 2:17 p.m. distress call (misdialed in panic, alerting neighbors first). “He yelled through the wood: ‘It’s over, Chels. For all of us.’ Goldie’s wail pierced it—my baby, trapped with her brothers.” Chelsey fled to summon help, returning to flames licking the doorframe by 2:25 p.m., firefighters breaching too late. This aligns with FENZ’s pour pattern: two liters sloshed across the en-suite threshold, ignited by a bedroom lighter. The “strange figure” from neighbor footage? Dismissed today as a passing farmhand, gait analysis confirming no match to threats. Dean’s “someone’s watching” mutterings? Chelsey posits paranoia from untreated anxiety, undiagnosed post a 2024 workshop injury. “He’d stare at shadows, whisper about ‘eyes everywhere.’ I urged therapy; he promised, but pride…” Her tears, unbidden, underscore the instant’s pivot: from suspected intruder to intimate implosion.
The bedroom’s isolation amplifies the horror’s claustrophobia. Sanson Hall Road’s modest ranch-style home, built 1998, featured the master as a 4×4-meter sanctuary—ensuite, built-ins, a window barred by childproof gates Dean installed himself. Forensics depict the end: children huddled by the door, August perhaps shielding Goldie; Hugo clutching a toy truck, carbonized in the ash. Dean, cross-legged on the floor, note in lap, match struck. Smoke detectors wailed unheard; the wedged frame bought minutes, sealing fates. Chelsey’s pounding left bruises on her palms, scars she’ll carry to the inquest set for March 2026. “In one breath, my world locked away,” she said, the interview’s viral clip amassing 500,000 views by 8 p.m. “I clawed till my nails split. If only the door…”
Sanson, still draped in memorials, absorbs the shift with weary sighs. The Givealittle fund, now at $350,000, channels Chelsey’s resolve: proceeds for “locked-door drills” in schools and anxiety apps for rural dads. “No more barricades unseen,” she vows in updates, her words threading X feeds where #SansonLocked trends. Posts blend empathy—”Chelsey’s strength is superhuman”—with reckoning: “How many Deans suffer in silence?” one viral thread queries, 20,000 likes deep. Funerals linger in memory: the children’s November 24 service a riot of color at Crossroads Church, karakia blending with “Mum will love you forever”; Dean’s private rite November 25, kin-only, eulogizing a “flawed father who snapped.” Community potlucks resume, but doors now bolt double—FENZ donating smoke alarms laced with panic buttons.
Nationally, the confirmation ignites discourse. Oranga Tamariki reports a 25% uptick in filicide risk assessments post-Sanson, rural Manawatū clinics extending hours. Dr. Mira Patel, family therapist at Massey University, op-edded in the NZ Herald: “Bedroom origins symbolize retreat into toxicity—where love twists to cage. Chelsey’s account demands we fund escape plans, not just autopsies.” Petitions for mandatory mental health checks in high-conflict homes hit 15,000 signatures, tagging MPs. Online, vitriol softens to sorrow: “From watcher to locked room—truth hurts, but frees,” posts @ManawatuMum, retweeted widely.
For Chelsey, the “instant” replays in dreams: door unyielding, screams fading to crackle. Yet, in her 1News close, defiance sparks: “That room took my angels, but not my fight. For August’s dreams, Hugo’s grins, Goldie’s grasp—I’ll unlock every shadow.” Police, probe winding down sans arrests, echo gratitude: “Her courage clarifies chaos.” The half-burnt note, preserved in evidence lockers, whispers unresolved: “I didn’t want it to end like this…” Now, with origin mapped and account etched, Sanson exhales—flames contained, but embers of reform kindling bright.
