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It is easy to imagine how terrible must have been for Michelle Pearson to survive her four children´s death in a fire. She was so badly injured she was unable to attend their funeral. The fire was caused by a petrol bomb thrown through her kitchen window in Walkden Greater Manchester at dawn on December 1, 2017, by two men that now face four life sentences.
One of her children, Demi Pearson, was 15 while her brother, Brandon, was 8, their sister, Lacie, 7 and the youngest, Lia, scarcely three. Since the hideous attack a tough Michelle fought to recover both physically and morally, however, her health deteriorated and she finally passed away two days ago
Death 'incredibly tragic'
The news of Pearson´s death was communicated through Facebook by her mother on Monday.
Meanwhile, Detective Superintendent Lewis Hughes from Greater Manchester Police, while stating her death as “incredibly tragic”, saying "I know first-hand how devastating the death of her four children was for Michelle and the news of her passing is incredibly tragic".
As police officers investigated the crime the Superintendent expressed his desire to “extend his sincere condolences” to Michelle´s loved ones, on the premises that any support they needed would be supplied by the investigation team.
Investigations led to the apprehension of two men: Zak Bolland and David Worrall who now will have to face respectively 40 and 37 years life sentences whereas Courtney Brierley, 20, guilty of four charges of manslaughter was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
A drug and alcohol-induced crime
Bolland and Worrall, intoxicated with alcohol and drugs, prepared a bottle with petrol from a nearby garage and, after breaking Pearson´s window, threw it inside the kitchen. The fire started close to the stairs, thus blocking the only possible exit for the victims. Michelle shouted out begging for her children's lives: “Not the kids!
Not my kids”! she screamed. Sometime before the attack, Pearson’s other son, Kyle, 17, had had a dispute with Bolland over car damage. He managed to escape from the fire along with a friend.
Days before the attack, feeling unsafe in the house, Michelle had tried to move somewhere safe, a circumstance that, according to Claire Pearson, Michelle´s sister, telling the Huffington Post, the police were aware of as well as the social services and the council.
"I’m sorry to say this but … they’ve let her down, and my sister and her kids would have had a chance of survival if they did their job properly.”
Nevertheless, these institutions “didn´t pay attention to the requests”, said the children´s grandfather Mike Pearson. “She begged” to be moved, he added,” to a safer house but they just refused over the argument of her not having to be in any danger”. Michelle´s mother, Sandra, on Jeremy Kyle Show, explained in harrowing words how she was finally, after having avoided it over six weeks, told her injured daughter in the hospital that her four children had passed away.
