Left: Meliza Campos-Sanchez holding a lighter before allegedly setting a fire in her kitchen (Instagram/MelizaCSanchez). Right: Meliza Campos-Sanchez (TGKCC).
A 26-year-old mother in Florida allegedly posted videos to Instagram in which she poured hot candle wax onto her two young daughters before setting fire to multiple articles of clothing in the family’s kitchen while the children were still inside.
Authorities in Miami took Meliza Campos-Sanchez into custody on Monday and charged her with one count of first-degree arson and three counts of child abuse in connection with the incident, court records show.
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According to a probable cause affidavit, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and sheriff’s deputies responded to Campos-Sanchez’s home in the 4200 block of SW 95th Avenue regarding a dwelling fire. Upon arriving, first responders found damage to the center of the tiled kitchen floor, along with a silver mask, a red wand lighter and a clear plastic condiment bottle believed to have held rubbing alcohol.
Investigators also found black clothing with fire damage in a trash can outside the home. They determined that someone had intentionally started the fire “by an open flame held to ignitable liquids and combustible materials,” the affidavit states.
Authorities then discovered two videos Campos-Sanchez had recently posted to her Instagram account, one of which involved her children, ages 6 and 3.
“One video shows the defendant in the kitchen of her home, using lit candles to pour hot melted candle wax on her own leg, and then in the hands of her two daughters,” the affidavit states.
The other video allegedly showed Campos-Sanchez wearing a silver mask, short burgundy dress and black underwear, singing in Spanish and “dancing seductively” in the kitchen while holding a red wand lighter, investigators wrote.
Campos-Sanchez then allegedly grabbed two black articles of clothing, dropped them onto the kitchen floor and sprayed them with liquid from the plastic bottle. She used the red wand lighter to ignite the liquid, producing a “large flash over of orange flame.”
She then threw a glass coffee mug into the flames, breaking it, before continuing to dance as the fire burned. Campos-Sanchez lifted her dress to her chest and eventually removed the silver mask and revealed her face, according to investigators.
Police later spoke with Campos-Sanchez’s 6-year-old daughter, who said she and her younger sister had been in the laundry room next to the kitchen after lunch when they saw their mother set the fire. When the flames were extinguished, Campos-Sanchez allegedly poured the wax on her daughters.
“Afterwards, [the 6-year-old] stated that her mother brought her and her sister into the kitchen, and began pouring what she describes as ‘HOT WATER OR AGUA’ from the lit candles (melted candle wax) on herself, [the 6-year-old], and her sister,” investigators wrote in the affidavit.
Campos-Sanchez’s husband told investigators he and Campos-Sanchez were having “marital issues” and that he had been staying with his parents for about a week before the incident. He also indicated that Campos-Sanchez had recently attempted to harm herself.
Campos-Sanchez was taken to a hospital and placed under a Baker Act hold, which allows for temporary detention of an individual for a mental health exam. Deputies took her into custody after she was cleared for discharge.
Campos-Sanchez was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Institution and is scheduled to appear before a judge on Tuesday for a bond hearing, records show.
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