Dallas

Woman Found Deceased After Dallas House Fire a Victim of Homicide, Police Say

Police have not revealed the woman's cause of death or named a suspect

Dallas police are investigating the death of woman whose body was found in a burning home early Friday morning as a homicide.

Firefighters arrived at a home on the 3200 block of Elsie Faye Heggins Street at about 3:30 a.m., Dallas Fire-Rescue officials said. They mounted an offensive attack and extinguished the flames in a short amount of time, officials said.

Soon after, a woman’s body was found inside the home.

Dallas police responded to the fire call as well. According to police, homicide detectives learned that an unknown person threw an object with accelerant against the house and it ignited, causing the fire to spread into the home.

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NBC 5 News
Dallas police say the woman whose body was found inside a burning home on the 3200 block of Elsie Faye Heggins Street is a victim of homicide, Sept. 13, 2019.

Detectives have identified the victim only as a 38-year-old black female.

A woman at the scene Friday morning said she was the victim's mother. She believes her daughter was murdered because of an argument over $5. She said the man who police are looking for shot her first.

"He gunned her down, burnt it up and he shot her," she said. "We are heartbroken. We are so heartbroken, we don't know what to do."

The victim's sister said she was a mother of two and a grandmother. The sister was also at the home Friday morning and heard about the arson.

"He made a bomb and he tried to throw it in the window and it was made of plastic and it bounced back on the couch and it just kind of blew up," she said. "We're very heartbroken and we want justice."

A total of three people lived in the home, including a man an his elderly uncle. The man told NBC 5 the victim called him for help at about 2 a.m., asking him to come home because a man was refusing to leave. He said by the time he returned from his friend's house, the home had burned. He added that his uncle escaped the fire and is cooperating with police.

The Dallas Police Department's Homicide Unit is asking for the public's help. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Detective Christopher Walton at 214-671-3632 or by email at christopher.walton@dallascityhall.com. Please refer to case number 186234-2019.

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