Heartbreaking Details Emerge of Dean Field’s Final Hours Before the Deadly Sanson Fire: A Half-Burned Letter and Unusual Chemicals Rewrite the Narrative

In the shadow of Sanson’s unassuming farmlands, where the wind whispers through golden fields and neighbors wave from weathered verandas, the embers of a family tragedy continue to smolder. It’s been just 12 days since the November 15 blaze that devoured a two-story home on Rangatira Road, claiming the lives of Dean Michael Field, 36, and his three beloved children: August James, 7; Hugo John, 5; and Goldie May Iris, 1. What began as a suspected murder-suicide has fractured further under the weight of new revelations—intimate glimpses into Dean’s tormented final hours, a half-burned letter clutched in the ruins, and traces of unusual chemicals that defy the arson narrative investigators clung to. “This isn’t the monster we painted,” whispers a source close to the family, voice cracking over a crackling phone line. “It’s a man drowning in regret, and now we’ll never know how to pull him back.”

The fire erupted around 2:30 p.m. on that fateful Saturday, not the dead-of-night horror initially reported, but a midday inferno that caught the town off-guard. Neighbors, tending gardens or sipping tea, first noticed the plume of black smoke rising like a funeral pyre. Sirens wailed from the Sanson Volunteer Fire Brigade, but by the time hoses doused the flames, the house was a skeletal husk—roof caved in, walls charred black, the air heavy with the acrid bite of destruction. Inside, rescuers found the unimaginable: the bodies of Dean and his children, overcome by smoke and heat in what police swiftly classified as a homicide investigation. Chelsey Field, the children’s 34-year-old mother, was in Palmerston North that day, finalizing paperwork for a family business venture—a cruel twist of fate that spared her but shattered her world. “I was supposed to pick them up at 3,” she told RNZ in her first public statement last Friday, her words a raw wound broadcast nationwide. “August was excited for ice cream, Hugo wanted to show me his new drawing, and Goldie… my little rainbow girl, she just wanted cuddles. Now, silence. Endless, howling silence.”

Public mourning swelled quickly. A Givealittle page, launched by Chelsey’s sister, exploded past $250,000 in donations, fueled by a community’s ache and viral shares on platforms like X, where #SansonStrong trended alongside tear-streaked tributes. Vigils dotted the streets with blue ribbons—the children’s favorite color—and a public funeral on November 25 drew hundreds in bright attire, as Chelsey implored: “Wear colors. Let them shine through us.” But beneath the rainbow memorials, investigators sifted the ashes for truth. Early forensics pointed to accelerants: petrol traces in the kitchen, kerosene near the bedrooms—hallmarks of deliberate arson. Dean, a soft-spoken mechanic at Feilding’s Auto Repair, had been unraveling. Debts from a failed side hustle in farm equipment piled up; whispers of custody tensions with Chelsey, though she clarified they were “working through it together,” not separated. A private funeral for Dean, held last week at his family’s request, drew a somber crowd who remembered him as “adored Dad” and “deeply loved uncle,” but even there, questions lingered.

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Now, as police returned the scorched property to the family on November 22—ending the full scene lockdown—heartbreaking details of Dean’s final hours have seeped into the light, painting a portrait far more nuanced than villainy alone. Sources familiar with the investigation, speaking exclusively to this outlet under condition of anonymity, describe a timeline pieced from half-erased security footage, neighbor testimonies, and digital breadcrumbs from Dean’s phone. It began ordinarily enough: that morning, Dean bundled the kids into his battered Toyota for a trip to Sanson’s playground. August kicked a soccer ball with fierce determination; Hugo chased butterflies, his laughter a melody; Goldie toddled after, her tiny fists clutching daisies. “They were his universe,” one neighbor recalled, eyes distant. “He’d light up like the sun around them.”

By noon, cracks appeared. Dean stopped at the local dairy for milkshakes—chocolate for the boys, strawberry for Goldie—but lingered in the aisles, staring blankly at shelves as if decoding a riddle. A CCTV clip, timestamped 12:47 p.m., shows him paying with trembling hands, mumbling apologies to the cashier for “spilling change.” Back home, the afternoon unraveled. Phone records reveal a flurry of calls: three to Chelsey, left unanswered amid her meetings; two to his mother, Evelyn Harper, cut short by voicemails of choked sobs. “Mum, I can’t… I love them so much, but it’s all falling apart,” one message pleads, according to a family friend who heard the playback. Then, at 1:45 p.m., a final outgoing call—to a debt collector, ending in shouts that echoed down the street.

What happened in those vanishing 45 minutes before the smoke alarm pierced the air? The half-burned letter, discovered wedged in a floorboard crack amid Goldie’s toy-strewn room, offers the first piercing clue. Forensic teams from ESR Wellington recovered it last week, its edges frizzled but core text legible under UV imaging. Penned in Dean’s hurried scrawl on lined notebook paper, it reads like a confessional fever dream: “Chelsey, if you’re reading this, know I never meant the hurt. The business tanked because of me—bad deals, worse luck. I thought the insurance would fix it, make us whole again. But the kids… they’re innocent. Tell them Daddy’s sorry for the shadows. August, be brave like your heroes. Hugo, keep strumming that guitar. Goldie, my flower, bloom wild. I love you all to the stars and back. Forgive me.” The letter trails off, ink smudged as if by tears, dated November 15—and unsigned. “It’s not a suicide note,” the source confides. “It’s a goodbye laced with hope. Like he wrote it expecting rescue, not oblivion.”

Compounding the enigma: traces of unusual chemicals, not the expected petrol or kerosene, but something altogether stranger. Lab results, rushed through for the coronial inquest, detected residues of sodium chlorate and aluminum powder—components of amateur flash powders, often scavenged by hobbyists for fireworks or model rocketry. Dean, friends recall, tinkered in the garage with “science projects” to wow the kids: homemade volcanoes for August’s school fair, sparkler wands for Hugo’s birthday. But quantities here were off—enough for a chain reaction, ignited perhaps by a dropped tool or faulty wiring in the cluttered space. “It’s not arson in the classic sense,” explains Dr. Elias Thorne, a fire forensics expert at the University of Canterbury, consulted on the case. “These chemicals are volatile but not overtly malicious. Mix them wrong, add a spark from the old electricals in that house, and you’ve got an accelerant-by-accident. Heartbreaking— a dad’s playtime gone catastrophically awry.”

This revelation has upended the murder-suicide framework. Initial autopsies showed the children succumbed to smoke inhalation, their small bodies clustered in the upstairs hallway as if fleeing together. Dean’s wounds—lacerations on his arms—once screamed self-harm, but re-examination suggests they were defensive, perhaps from shattering a window in vain escape. No locked doors, no poured trails of fuel; instead, a tipped-over canister of the flash mixture, its vapors igniting near a space heater left running for Goldie’s nap. “He was in the kitchen when it flashed,” the source adds. “Ran upstairs yelling for them, but the whoosh… it trapped everyone.” Chelsey, upon learning of the letter via police liaison, collapsed in sobs during a private briefing. “He wasn’t ending us,” she posted on a closed family Facebook group, leaked to media. “He was trying to hold on. God, why didn’t I answer that call?”

The community’s fracture deepens. Evelyn Harper, Dean’s mother, who buried her son privately amid whispers of blame, now grapples with vindication tinged with torment. “My boy was no killer,” she told TVNZ’s 1News, clutching the locket from prior reports—a family heirloom unscathed in the rubble. “He was flawed, yes—debts, doubts—but those grandbabies were his light. This… this was a cruel mistake, not malice.” Online, X erupts in reevaluation: threads dissect the chemicals (“Flash powder? Like for fireworks? Oh man, this changes everything”), while #JusticeForDean gains traction alongside the children’s memorials. Skeptics cling to the homicide tag, citing police caution, but even Manawatu Area Commander Inspector Ross Grantham hinted at “evolving evidence” in yesterday’s briefing.

As the inquest looms in December, Sanson exhales uneasily. The returned property stands boarded-up, a ghost amid blooming camellias. Chelsey, buoyed by counseling and the fundraiser’s windfall, plans a memorial garden: a swing set for August’s adventures, a guitar bench for Hugo, a flower bed for Goldie. “We’ll plant hope where the fire took it,” she vows. But for those who loved Dean, the half-burned words echo loudest—a father’s flawed love, immortalized in ash. It’s not the ending anyone expected: no villain’s manifesto, but a tragic spark from everyday dreams. In this quiet town, where tragedy once seemed imported from afar, the truth burns brighter—and kinder—than the blaze itself.

What of the unusual chemicals’ source? Traces match a kit Dean ordered online months prior for “family experiments,” per purchase records subpoenaed by police. No foul play, just a man juggling fatherhood and failure, his garage a Pandora’s box of good intentions. “He wanted to be their hero,” a colleague laments. “Instead, he became their elegy.” As winter chills the Manawatū plains, Sanson mourns not a monster, but a mosaic of mistakes—reminding us that unimaginable nights often dawn from the ordinary, one overlooked spark at a time.