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Police: Fairfield Mom Kills Twin Toddlers, Sets Home Afire

FAIRFIELD (BCN) - A 28-year-old Fairfield woman was in critical but stable condition Wednesday after allegedly fatally stabbing her twin daughters and attempting suicide Tuesday night, Fairfield police said.

The woman's 3-year-old daughters were found stabbed to death after firefighters received a 10:40 p.m. call reporting a fire at 3001 N. Texas St.

The fire was at apartment 54 at the Summit at Paradise Valley apartment complex, Battalion Chief Steve Trepagnier said.

Witnesses said several residents tried to enter the woman's third-floor apartment as the fire was burning.

One resident, Jennifer Babas, said her husband tried to break through the front door but felt as though there was something heavy blocking it. He and some of his friends then tried to enter through a patio area but couldn't.

Another resident, Quincy Deal, said the occupant of a downstairs unit was able to kick open the front door of the apartment but didn't enter because there was too much smoke.

Both Babas' husband and the downstairs resident said they saw some kind of knife or sword with blood on it when they tried to enter the unit, according to the witnesses.

Police Lt. Darrin Moody said at a news conference Wednesday that the woman had suffered lacerations. He said no one else is suspected in the murders because the apartment's windows and doors had been locked from the inside.

"We can confirm that the deaths were not related to the fire," Assistant Fire Marshal Jerry Clark said Tuesday morning.

The cause of the fire remains unknown, but the building's sprinkler system helped put out the blaze quickly and prevent it from spreading.

"It may have saved lives," Moody said.

The sprinklers triggered an alarm that alerted firefighters, who received a call about the fire from a resident a short time later.

The mother was airlifted to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek for what appeared to be self-inflicted lacerations to "several parts of the body," Clark said.

Investigators are unsure when the stabbings happened, but they appear to have occurred one right after the other, Moody said.

Moody wouldn't say whether the weapon had been recovered or where in the apartment the girls' bodies were found.

Investigators are looking for the twins' father, who was not in the immediate area when the deaths occurred.

The woman had been living at the apartment building for less than a month, according to her neighbors. She was seen driving a white Nissan Versa, which was still parked in the apartment complex's parking lot as of this afternoon.

Both rear windows of the car were rolled down, with two child safety seats in the back and what looked like a pack of cigarettes in the front.

Deal said he saw the car parked horizontally across three spaces on Monday, the day before the incident, which he said looked odd.

Anyone interested in learning more about this case should contact police Sgt. Joel Orr at (707) 428-7339.

(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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