It was supposed to be just another ordinary Thursday evening in Sanson, the kind of evening when the last of the school buses rumble past the dairy, when lambs bleat in the paddocks behind Suad Street, and families sit down to mince on toast or whatever is left in the fridge before the weekend shop. Instead, at 7:42 p.m., a ring of television cameras and a huddle of freezing reporters waited outside a cordon of fluttering police tape while Detective Inspector Ross Grantham walked to the microphone and confirmed what everyone had been dreading for forty-eight hours.

“The fire at Suad Street, Sanson, is now being investigated as a murder-suicide,” he said, the words landing like stones in still water. “An adult male and three children were located deceased inside the property. Formal identification processes are under way, but we believe them to be members of the same family.”

Then came the sentence that made the entire country catch its breath: “As of this evening, the bodies of two children have been recovered with the assistance of specialist search teams. Whānau were present to perform karakia as they were removed. Work continues tonight to locate the third child. The adult male’s body was recovered yesterday.”

Grantham paused, looked directly into the lenses, and added the line that will haunt New Zealand for years: “We will not stop until we have brought every child home to their mother and their whānau.”

Behind him, under harsh floodlights, excavator arms moved with excruciating care, scooping blackened debris into piles while firefighters in breathing apparatus crawled on hands and knees through what used to be bedrooms. Somewhere beneath the collapsed roof and the melted plastic toys lay the last small body they were still searching for.

The family at the centre of the tragedy

Gareth Alan Larsen, 39, was known around Sanson as a hard-working builder who could turn his hand to anything: decks, renovations, the odd barn. Neighbours remember him as quietly spoken, the sort of bloke who would stop to fix a stranger’s fence without being asked. His Facebook page, now frozen in time, is full of proud dad photos: Bella, 9, grinning in her netball bib; Cooper, 7, sitting on Gareth’s shoulders at the A&P show; Indie, 4, covered in ice-cream at the Sanson Christmas parade last year.

His wife, Hannah Larsen, 36, is a registered nurse in the emergency department at Palmerston North Hospital. Colleagues describe her as calm under pressure, the nurse you wanted beside you when everything was going wrong. She had worked the night shift on 18–19 November and was still wearing her scrubs when she arrived at the scene on Wednesday morning after receiving a police phone call no partner ever expects.

One of the first firefighters on scene found her on her knees in the middle of Suad Street, screaming her children’s names until her voice gave out.

How the morning unfolded

At 6:17 a.m. on Wednesday, Fire and Emergency was alerted to a fully-involved house fire at 14 Suad Street. Crews arrived within eight minutes to find the 1950s weatherboard house “well alight” with flames punching through the iron roof. The heat was so intense that aluminium window frames had liquefied and run down the walls like candle wax.

Neighbour Shane Paki told Stuff he was woken by a series of loud explosions – later determined to be camping gas bottles rupturing. Running outside, he saw Gareth Larsen standing barefoot on the front lawn in just a pair of shorts, staring at the burning house.

“I yelled out, ‘Gareth, the kids, mate, the kids!’” Paki said. “He looked at me for a second – I swear his eyes were empty – then he turned and walked straight back inside. I tried to follow him but the heat knocked me back. That’s the last time I saw him alive.”

Firefighters made repeated attempts to enter the property but were forced back by extreme temperatures and structural collapse. It was not until late Wednesday afternoon, once the seat of the fire had been cooled, that they were able to confirm human remains inside.

The grim search for the children

Specialist Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams from Auckland and Wellington flew in on Thursday morning. Urban search-and-rescue dogs trained to detect human remains worked alongside cadaver dogs, their handlers whispering encouragement as they moved through the rubble.

At 4:10 p.m. on Thursday the first child’s body was located in the rear bedroom. Family members who had maintained a silent vigil behind the cordon since Wednesday linked arms and performed a long, aching karakia as the tiny stretcher, draped in a white sheet, was carried past them to a waiting mortuary van.

Two hours later, at 6:28 p.m., a second child was found beneath the remnants of a bunk bed. Again the whānau sang, their voices carrying across the paddocks in the dusk.

Tonight, as Grantham briefed media, the search continued. Every scoop of the excavator bucket was watched by dozens of police officers standing shoulder-to-shoulder in silence. Several wiped away tears when a child’s melted plastic lunchbox or a singed netball bib was uncovered.

What investigators now believe happened

Although the investigation is still in its early stages and a final cause of death awaits post-mortem examination, police sources have revealed the working hypothesis is chillingly clear.

Accelerant was poured throughout the house – traces of petrol have been detected in multiple rooms. Children’s bedroom doors appear to have been deliberately blocked or locked from the outside. There is no evidence that any of the three children managed to leave their rooms.

Detectives believe Gareth Larsen set the fire sometime between 4 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., stood outside long enough to watch it take hold, then re-entered the burning house and died in the hallway near the front door.

A half-empty petrol can and several ruptured camping-gas cylinders have been recovered from the scene.

A family under pressure

Court records obtained by Stuff show Hannah Larsen applied for a temporary protection order against Gareth in September 2025 after an incident of family harm. The details are suppressed, but neighbours recall police attending the address on at least three occasions in the past six months.

Friends say the couple’s financial situation had become dire. Gareth’s building business collapsed during the construction downturn; invoices went unpaid, creditors were calling, and the family home was heavily mortgaged. One close friend, who asked not to be named, said Gareth had become increasingly withdrawn.

“He kept saying he was a failure, that he couldn’t provide for his kids,” the friend told Stuff. “We tried to get him help, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Kiwi blokes, you know – just bottle it up.”

The village tries to breathe

Sanson School principal Rachelle Pedersen opened the school hall at 6 p.m. tonight for a community vigil. More than 500 people attended – many more than the village’s population of 900. Children placed drawings and soft toys along the fence line that now forms a makeshift memorial opposite the burnt-out house.

Pedersen told the crowd: “Bella was going to be our netball captain next year. Cooper was saving for a digger driver apprenticeship before he’d even started intermediate. Indie used to bring me dandelions every single day. They were three of the brightest lights in our school, and now our world is darker without them.”

Outside, a handwritten sign tied to the fence with pink ribbon reads: “To Bella, Cooper & Indie – fly high little angels. We will never forget you.”

A mother’s unimaginable grief

Hannah Larsen has been staying with her parents in Feilding since Wednesday. She has not spoken publicly, but a family spokesperson released a brief statement tonight:

“Hannah is utterly broken. She kissed her babies goodnight on Tuesday and went to work to save other people’s lives, never imagining she would never see them again. She asks for privacy to grieve and to wait for her children to be brought home to her.”

Counselling teams from Victim Support and the Red Cross have been working around the clock in Sanson. A Givealittle page set up by Hannah’s nursing colleagues had raised more than $180,000 by 10 p.m. tonight.

What happens next

Post-mortem examinations are expected to begin in Auckland tomorrow. Formal identification will be carried out using dental records and DNA. Police have warned the process could take several days.

Detective Inspector Grantham has promised a thorough review of all agency contact with the family in the lead-up to the tragedy.

“We owe it to those three beautiful children, to their mother, and to every family in similar circumstances to understand exactly what happened and whether anything more could have been done,” he said.

As the clock ticked past midnight, the floodlights still burned on Suad Street. Firefighters, police, and USAR specialists refused to leave while one child remained missing. Every now and then a new section of rubble would be cleared and the searchers would pause, hearts in mouths, before shaking their heads and moving on.

Somewhere in the darkness, a mother waits for the call that will tell her all three of her children are finally coming home – even though she already knows they will never again run through the front door shouting “Mum, we’re hungry!”

And a country that has cried more tears in the last forty-eight hours than it thought possible holds its breath for the moment the last little soul is found and carried gently into the night.