A jilted ex-girlfriend who broke into her former partner’s bedroom, doused him and his new lover with petrol, and set them on fire has been identified.
Sarah Mudge, 31, stormed into Stanley Obi’s house in New Beith, in Brisbane’s southern suburbs, just before 3am on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
This story has an update, read it HERE
Queensland Police will allege she tried to set Mr Obi and his new lover on fire while his three young children were in the house.
However, the only person the mother-of-four managed to kill was herself.
Mr Obi’s new girlfriend, 30, escaped with burns to her airway along with all three children – aged five, three, and two.
Meanwhile, a hero neighbour known as Al dragged the loving father’s burning body from the wreckage.
The bizarre alleged attack came just weeks after Mudge posted a chilling, but vague, message to Facebook saying: ‘She’s not toxic bro. You made her like that. Now you think she is crazy.’
Neighbours Scott and Michelle, who live next door to Al, told Daily Mail Australia he frantically tried to knock on everyone’s doors on the street – but no one woke up.
‘He knocked on a few doors and the guy the next house over did the same. I think he knocked on a few doors across the street,’ Scott said.
‘But the first we heard of it was when the sirens lit up the street – we came out to see what was happening but there was no sirens just lights.’
They said Al stayed with Mr Obi, who suffered burns to 90 percent of his body, until an ambulance came 35 minutes later.
The father remains in a critical condition at Royal Brisbane Hospital – but if he survives, Al very likely saved his life.
Another neighbour told the Courier-Mail that he worked hard to get everyone – including Ms Mudge – out of the burning house.
‘I tried to get everyone out of there through the side of the house, and then someone said there’s a lady in there so I tried to go back in but it was too significantly burnt already, I couldn’t get in,’ he said.
Obi is a professional nurse and knew his burns were life-threatening.
‘He said to me, ‘I’m not going to make it, I’m going to die, I’m going to die, you need to help me. Help me,’ the neighbour recalled.
‘He was giving me his hand, reaching out to me to hold it, and I wasn’t going to hold his hand because I know about infection control.’
Mr Obi’s current, unnamed girlfriend and the three children have been taken to the Royal Brisbane Hospital.
Detectives said Mr Obi and Ms Mudge were known to police while they were together.
Just weeks before the tragedy, Ms Mudge wrote a cryptic post on Facebook under the heading ‘relationship rules’.
‘She’s not toxic bro,’ she wrote.
‘You made her like that. Now you think she is crazy.
‘Your decisions reflect her actions. Check yourself.’
Ms Mudge, who ran her own photography business, also has multiple photos of Mr Obi and their children on her social media pages.
Just four days ago she was asking people in a local Facebook page for advice about her son’s snail garden.
Mr Obi’s friend said he and his new partner built their new dream home last year, and only moved in late October.
Superintendent Mark White said there is no evidence that a Molotov cocktail was thrown, and believe Ms Mudge ‘somehow gained entry and then once in there was able to throw petrol around’.
Police do not believe anyone else was involved.
During a press conference on Thursday morning, police said Mr Obi and his new partner had lived in the house for about six months.
Detectives are yet to interview the surviving woman and have appealed to the public for information.
One resident said fire trucks and police sirens woke him up at 3am.
‘Could see the fire from mine, (easily) 10 metres high,’ he wrote on social media.
A spokesman from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services told Daily Mail Australia the property was ‘well engulfed’ when four crews arrived on the scene.
‘There was a partial roof collapse,’ he said.
Fire fighters spent more than two hours trying to douse the flames.
A crime scene has been declared at the scene with forensic detectives expected to attend this morning.
There was an update to this story on March 11, 2022. Read it HERE.
