Her five children died in a fire. Should she go to jail? The case of Sabrina Dunigan
Sabrina Dunigan says she came home in August on her birthday to discover the family’s apartment aflame. Now she’s facing jail, Sheila Flynn reports
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Sabrina Dunigan’s five beaming children are the stars of her Instagram account.
Her second-most-recent photo, posted in March, pictures her smiling twins, Heaven and Neveah; the girls are posing above their rainbow-coloured sheet cake for their eighth birthday.
The rest of the page is littered with pictures of the twins and their siblings Deontae Davis Jr, 9; Jabari Johnson, 4; and Loy-el Dunigan, 2, in addition to photos of Ms Dunigan celebrating her pregnancies. The 34-year-old mother’s Instagram conveys an image of a doting mother and loving extended family in East St Louis, Illinois.
Exactly seven months after Ms Dunigan posted the twins’ birthday photo, however, the 34-year-old was charged with five felonies in connection with the deaths of all of her children – who police allege were left alone when a fire ravaged their one-bedroom apartment in August.
But friends and family are arguing: Hasn’t she already lost enough?
The tragedy unfolded in the early hours of 6 August – Ms Dunigan’s birthday – after she left, she says briefly, to pick up her boyfriend from work. Her father, Greg, and his blind wife were staying in the back of the apartment, he told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.
When Ms Dunigan returned, she says she found the apartment in flames and futilely tried to rescue her five children, suffering burns in the process.
Her father and his wife couldn’t get to the them either, he told the Post-Dispatch, and only escaped by jumping from a second-floor window.
Four of the children died at the scene and one in a hospital in St. Louis.
The funeral was held a little more than two weeks after the fatal blaze – and it was heartbreaking. Members of the community pitched in to pay for the services, gathering to cry around custom-made, brightly-coloured coffins emblazoned with smiling pictures of each child and fanciful decorations like butterflies and ponies.
“These children were wonderful children. If you look at the caskets, each casket reflects their personal desires. The games they played with, the toys they liked, the colours they were interested in,” funeral director Walter Terry told Fox affiliate KTVI.
“If you look at the casket, it’s really a glimpse of their young lives.”
Ms Dunigan and mourners were inconsolable at Greater St Mark’s Church of God and the grounds at Sunset Gardens of Memory Cemetery as the children were laid to rest on 21 August. Some referred to the funeral proceedings, which were livestreamed, as a “homegoing celebration.”
“Even though I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting these children, I know that they were a crucial part of this community. It shows,” East St Louis Mayor Robert Eastern III said at the funeral, adding: “The community of East St. Louis and the city of East St. Louis, we stand with you.”
The grief of that community and the Dunigan family has been compounded since then by an ongoing investigation - and the possibility of prison time for Ms Dunigan.
She was charged on 3 November with five felony counts of endangering the life/health of a child in St Clair County, and a grand jury will decide whether to pursue a criminal trial. Ms Dunigan was arrested 7 November and released after posting bond, St Clair authorities told The Independent.
Online records listed no defence attorney for Ms Dunigan and her father told local reporters last week she had no lawyer. The Independent’s attempts to reach the Dunigans have been unsuccessful.
“Why are they trying to do this to her?” Mr Dunigan told the Post-Dispatch. “She lost all she can lose already. Why they want to take the rest away, meaning herself? She don’t have nothing left.”
In her first interview soon after the fire, Ms Dunigan said her children “didn’t deserve” their gruesome deaths and she already missed “their voices and their faces” - the same ones she so proudly documented on social media.
The mother-of-five’s supporters held a rally on Tuesday night in East St Louis and called the situation “tragic.”
“Obviously, she’s already been through a lot,” Rev Larita Rice-Barnes, who organised the event, told the Belleville News-Democrat. “There’s going to be a long road to recovery and healing for her.
“As a mother, to lose your children, but then have charges brought against you for it, is a devastating and tragic deal. It kind of sends you back into a pit that you’re already trying to work yourself up out of.”
The case - and whether or not Ms Dunigan deserved to be charged - has sparked an internet firestorm. As of Wednesday, two separate GoFundMe accounts for the Dunigan family had raised nearly $100,000.
“NOMATTA HOW IT HAPPEN ARE WHO AT FAULT SHE DON’T NEED TO BE IN #jail,” one Facebook user wrote.
That was countered by many more derogatory claims and vilification of Ms Dunigan.
But this isn’t the first time the family has been decimated by a house fire – or the first time either father or daughter has faced charges.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services confirmed to the Post-Dispatch that it had received a complaint about abuse or neglect in the family before the fire.
Ms Dunigan boasts a long list of charges, most dismissed, dating back to 2008 – when she was charged with assault but the case was dismissed. Charges ran the gamut after that from theft and property damage to traffic violations. She had more than one open arrest warrant before the fire.
Her Instagram profile – which features a photo posted the same day as her twins’ birthday – proclaims: “Don’t need a job ta get money.”
Ms Dunigan’s mother, speaking in the immediate aftermath of the fire to local station KMOV St Louis, said: ““No matter what went on in her life, she was always with her kids,” she added of her daughter. “Good, bad, thick, thin, it didn’t matter.”
Clearly distressed and still processing the tragedy, the grandmother told the station: “It wasn’t one kid. It wasn’t even two. It was all of them. She lost all her children.”
The mother-of-five’s father, Greg, has been previously convicted on charges ranging from fleeing the scene to traffic offences. He is awaiting sentencing and court appearances on an array of other charges that pre-date the August tragedy and include failure to properly secure children while driving.
In October 2019, the family’s home burned down after what Ms Dunigan claimed was an arson attack by her ex-boyfriend that left them homeless. The mother of five told NBC affiliate KSDK at the time that she was about to go to the supermarket with her parents and children when an “angry” ex showed up with a gun.
"We’re just telling him he has to leave, and he said he was gonna set the house on fire," Ms Dunigan told KSDK.
The 34-year-old and her family have theorised to local media that an electrical problem could have sparked the more recent deadly August blaze that left the five children dead.
But their landlord, who served 24 years on the East St Louis police force, fiercely disputes any claims that the building could have played a role in the disaster.
“The bottom line is she left her babies at home with something burning and set the building on fire,” Rudy McIntosh told Fox2Now, adding: “I don’t know what she told the investigators, but she told me she left a candle burning and the kids set the apartment on fire. That’s what she said to me.”
He said only two children had been listed on the lease and his “heart goes out” to the relatives but” the evidence speaks for its self.
“The building had nothing to do with what happened to them babies. That was the mother’s fault at the end of the day. She should have been at home with her kids.”
Christopher G Allen, a spokesman for the St Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office, said the office doesn’t want any reports released to the public about the cause of the fire until the case is prosecuted, the Post-Dispatch reported.
In East St Louis, grieving residents continued to feel their hearts heave as they passed the scene of the fire. Marshata Caradine told the Belleville News-Democrat she stood outside the charred building every night for nearly a month following what had happened.
She also attended Tuesday’s rally in support of Ms Dunigan.
“I had a sense of urgency to get out and just stand in solidarity with the mom,” said the mother of three. “Social media is very cruel, and especially cruel to Black woman ... Her whole life is shattered.”