After admitting she was unaware a couple and their infant were upstairs when she set fire to their family home, an enraged sex worker sobbed in court.
Jenny Hayes, who is accused of three counts of arson causing death, appeared before Victoria’s Supreme Court on Wednesday via video link from the Dame Phylis Frost Center, a prison for women only.
On December 2, 2020, the 47-year-old started a fire in a Totem Way house in Point Cook, 22 km southwest of Melbourne’s central business district, which resulted in the deaths of Abbey Forrest, 19, Inda Sohal, 28, and the couple’s three-year-old daughter Ivy.
Soon after the fire and her arrest, Ms. Hayes confessed to her son via text, saying, “I think I did something stupid.”
The sex worker pleaded guilty to all three counts of arson while hunching over and sobbing in court.
She cried as she watched the hearing online with the victims’ families.
On the same day, Ms. Hayes is believed to have had a disagreement with a man at the location regarding sexual services.
At 3:40 a.m., the enraged Fawkner woman went back to the house and lit a mattress on fire before leaving.
When the townhouse caught fire, Ms. Forrest and Mr. Sohal were sleeping upstairs with their three-week-old daughter Ivy.
Hayes asserts that she was not aware that the family was sound asleep upstairs.
This was subsequently corroborated by her son Harley, who told the Nine Network that he had received a text message from his mother claiming that she had “done something stupid” at 4am and including a picture of the burned mattress she had used to set the house on fire.
The man, who rented a room in the house, is thought to have been the intended victim but was not home when the fire broke out.
Just a few weeks prior to the fire, Ms. Forrest and Mr. Sohal moved into the Point Cook townhouse with their 19-day-old daughter.
In the ashes, their remains were discovered.
Murder and arson causing death were the initial charges against Ms. Hayes; however, the murder charge was dropped.
Later this month, she will appear in court for an arraignment before a pre-sentencing hearing.
The young family’s passing in the days before Christmas 2020 shocked the entire country.
Just a few days before Christmas, the mother and child said their goodbyes at St. Mary of the Angels Basilica in Geelong, which is south of Melbourne.
Just three weeks old, Baby Ivy would not have even had the opportunity to be baptized before her life was so terribly taken.
Abbey’s father, Alan Forrest, bravely paid tribute to the two with her grandfather.
As he spoke about the giving and fun-loving Tomboy his daughter was, he had to hold back tears.
Mr. Forrest stated that he would not be able to give a speech as the father of the bride or have his family come together for his daughter’s 21st birthday celebration.
“She won’t make it to her father of the bride speech or her 21st birthday speech.”
I must thus speak in honour of Abbey, Ivy, and Indi in this particular address.
The distraught father spoke of his daughter’s love of horses and her aspirations to one day work as a paramedic.
He remarked, “She was a kind young lady.”
She consistently expressed her gratitude and admiration for all of her professors.