Woman Trying to Kill Cockroach Allegedly Sets Fire to Building, Killing New Mom Neighbor By Sean Neumann

A South Korean woman allegedly used an improvised flamethrower to kill a cockroach, igniting an apartment fire that led to a neighbor’s death when she fell from a window while trying to escape, police and local media said.

The BBC, The Telegraph, and the Yonhap News Agency in South Korea, reported that local police in Osan, South Korea, say they now plan to criminally charge the woman in connection with her neighbor’s death after the suspect allegedly burnt the apartment complex down on Monday, Oct. 20.

South Korean officials said they issued a warrant to arrest the suspect, a woman in her 20s, because she is considered a flight risk, Yonhap reported. PEOPLE has reached out to South Korea’s National Police Agency for more information about the incident. Local police cited Yonhap’s local media report while issuing information about the incident to the public this week.

The apartment fire happened around 5:30 a.m. local time on Monday in Osan, about 30 miles south of Seoul. Officials reportedly said they plan to pursue charges including accidentally starting a fire and causing death by negligence, according to Yonhap.

Yonhap reported that the woman who died, a Chinese national in her 30s, just recently gave birth to her and her husband’s first-born daughter two months ago. She reportedly lived in a fifth-floor apartment with her husband and their baby, and died trying to jump from their apartment window into a neighboring building less than one meter away from their building, according to the outlet.

Yonhap reported that the apartment fire allegedly began when the suspect allegedly used a lighter and hairspray to try and kill a cockroach inside her apartment, according to police.

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Osan authorities said once the victim and her husband realized their apartment building had caught fire, they opened their window and called for help, handing their newborn baby to a neighbor from an adjacent building, according to Yonhap. BBC reported that smoke had already consumed their apartment building’s stairwell, leading them to use the window as their only escape. 

The woman’s husband managed to climb through their apartment window and successfully leapt to the neighboring building. However, when the new mother tried to do the same, she fell five stories to the street below and sustained serious injuries, according to Yonhap. The outlet reported that she was rushed to a local hospital but later died from her injuries.

Local authorities said the eight others injured in the apartment fire had sustained minor injuries from smoke inhalation. None of them are life threatening, according to Yonhap, which reported local police said they’ll continue investigating the cause of the fire before handing over the case to local prosecutors.