True crime: Finding what fuelled the fire

When police arrive at the scene of a house fire in Melbourne’s north-west, they are confronted with a victim suffering horrific burns who claims it was a terrible accident.

It’s late in the afternoon on 14 March 2022 when Kylie Sheahan, 35, her husband Roland Griffiths, 37, and their seven children flee from the burning home.

Kylie has suffered deep burns to 91 per cent of her body and when police ask her 17-year-old-daughter Cassie* how the fire started, Kylie quickly interrupts.

She claims that Griffiths tried to take his own life in the kitchen by pouring petrol on himself and lighting himself on fire, and that she caught fire when trying to stop him.

Her 16-year-old daughter Ashleigh* also tried to intervene and suffered burns to 52 per cent of her body.

Kylie and Ashleigh are rushed to the Alfred Hospital where they are placed into induced comas, along with Griffiths, who took burns to 32 per cent of his body.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Glen Hatton from the Arson and Explosives Squad arrives after the fire has been put out.

After 13 years of investigating fires, it doesn’t take Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton long to question the claim that it was a suicide attempt gone wrong.

“When we first spoke to Cassie, she backed up the story provided by her mum Kylie at the scene,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“But when we had a look through the scene, there were some significant burn patterns that were a bit suspicious.

“We have a really close relationship with the Alfred burns unit and they were able to give us some early indications as to the nature and severity of the burns Kylie, Ashleigh and Griffiths all suffered.

“What stood out is that Griffiths’ burns were predominantly on the front part of his body, with nothing on his back or back of his legs, back of his arms, and the majority of his clothing was undamaged, whereas Kylie had significant burns totally all over her body.”

Investigators also spoke to a neighbour who rushed to help during the fire, and they reported hearing Griffiths tell Kylie “Keep quiet, don’t say anything”.

Tragically, Kylie’s burns and injuries were so extensive, the doctors deemed they could do nothing to save her and her family decided to take her off life support.

Kylie died on 18 March, four days after the fire.

Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton and his fellow crew members Detective Sergeant Arthur Kossifas, Det Ldg Sen Const Paul Funnell and Det Ldg Sen Const Jim Gogorossis began to wonder if family violence may have been a factor in the fire and if they should be looking at murder charges.

“Once we dug a little bit deeper into Griffiths’ family violence history, we uncovered half a dozen other incidents where there'd been an argument, property had been damaged, things had been smashed, Kylie had been hit and incidents like that,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“There was one occasion the kids described to us where Griffiths smashed a mirror in one of their bedrooms and when the coppers turned up at the front door, they quickly had to throw bedsheets over the broken pieces of mirror, take the mirror down off the wall and hide it behind a wardrobe so that the coppers didn't see the damage.

“So we were seeing a history of not only family violence from Griffiths, but that he coerced and threatened the family to protect him from being caught by lying for him.”

The detectives were able to also take an important statement from a neighbour who said that, two months before the fire, they overheard Griffiths go out into his backyard during an argument.

The neighbour said Griffiths was screaming and said “I’ll burn the house down with all you guys in it”.

Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton and his colleagues knew they needed to get an expert to do a deeper examination of the evidence.

Arson chemist John Kelleher from the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department’s Fire and Explosion Unit, who had examined the scene the day after the fire, was given all the available evidence, such as recovered clothing, body-worn camera footage, photos and Kylie’s post-mortem report.

“When you think of someone who is an expert in their field, you might think of Tiger Woods in golf or Novak Djokovic in tennis, well John Kelleher was at that level as an arson chemist for 20 years,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“There would be fire scenes where we would be scratching our heads, then John would turn up and in just 15 minutes he would be able to tell you exactly what had happened.

“So John was able to say that, not only was Griffiths on the outside of the fire, but he said for Griffiths to receive his burns and Kylie to receive her burns, Griffiths must have literally been holding her down so she was either bent over or on all fours while he poured the petrol on her and then ignited the fire.”

With Griffiths and Ashleigh still in hospital and unable to be interviewed, Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton and his colleagues needed to get accounts of what happened from some of the other children.

The wellbeing of the children was at the forefront of their minds as they carefully spoke to them.

"You don't want these poor kids to have to relive it too much, so you have to try and get as much of the facts as you can without causing too much in the way of mental anguish,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“With Cassie, we took our time because she was very reticent to provide us the truthful account and was still in that self-preservation mode of wanting to protect Griffiths.

“We were careful, but we did say, ‘You can't go on protecting him, he's done the wrong thing, he's killed your mother’.

“But then Cassie was asking me, ‘Well, where am I going to live? If dad goes to jail, where am I going to go?’

“So then we got other family members involved so that she would have somewhere to go and assure her that she wouldn’t be out on the streets, that she would always have a home.

“It was all about building that little foundation underneath her, so that she was able to tell the truth.”

After enduring weekly surgeries, Ashleigh had recovered enough to speak to police and give her account.

She explained that Griffiths had been drinking throughout the day of the fire and verbally arguing on and off with Kylie.

When Ashleigh walked into the kitchen during one of the arguments, she saw Griffiths screaming at Kylie, holding her down and pouring a red jerry can of petrol over her neck and back.

She said he then grabbed a lighter and threatened to burn the house down, saying to Kylie, “Do you want me to burn it down?” and, “Do you want me to set it alight?”.

Kylie, Ashleigh and Cassie were all pleading for him to stop before he then lit the petrol-doused floor on fire.

The fire quickly spread to engulf Kylie and then to Griffiths, and Ashleigh, who had tried to help her mum.

Ashleigh also explained that she had experienced hallucinations when coming out of the coma, hearing Griffiths’ voice saying that he was going to burn the hospital down.

With Ashleigh’s statement and the accounts from some of the younger children, the detectives were now ready to interview Griffiths.

Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton and his colleagues carefully planned out the strategies they would use in the interview and theorised about all of Griffiths’ possible responses.

Two months after the fire, Griffiths was discharged from the hospital and the detectives immediately arrested and interviewed him.

“It was an interesting interview,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“He just came up with a scenario about how he'd been at the shops, he came back, he was unloading groceries and playing with the kids on the front lawn when he heard Kylie scream inside and he had to run in and drag her out of the burning building.

“For all the planning we did, we didn’t expect him to come up with something as far-fetched as that.”

But then the detectives started challenging Griffiths’ story with the extensive evidence and statements they had.

"When we put to him that what he was saying clearly wasn't true, he just started saying, “Oh, yeah, no, maybe I just can't remember”,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“He remembered some things very clearly but with any of the really damaging things, he always seemed to have memory loss.”

Griffiths was charged with the murder of Kylie and with recklessly causing serious injury to Ashleigh.

At the committal hearing, when it came time for a magistrate to test whether the evidence was enough to send the case to a trial, Griffiths’ defence lawyers were suggesting it was a case of a suicide attempt by Griffiths that had gone horribly wrong.

“At that point, the defence was still hoping that Cassie might stick to the story that it was an accident,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“When they were questioning her at the committal, they were going down the path of, ‘Oh, he was splashing the petrol around the kitchen, trying to set fire to himself and some just accidentally splashed on your mum’.

“But it was one of those moments in court where you should never ask a question you don’t know the answer to, because Cassie just turned around and said, ‘No, no, that’s not what happened’.

“And then she gave a really graphic image of him deliberately pouring the petrol on her mum.

“It’s one of the very few times in my career where I’ve seen in court a genuine ‘dun dun duuun’ moment.”

Griffiths continued to fight the charges and the case went through a 17-day trial in February 2024 before the jury was discharged due to issues unrelated to the case or the evidence.

A year later, on what was due to be the first day of the second trial, Griffiths changed his mind and pleaded guilty to both charges.

In January this year, he was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 32 years.

Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said the long sentence brought a degree of relief to some of the children.

“One of the kids was always worried, saying, ‘If I give evidence against Roland, when he gets out of jail, what's he going to do to me? If he did this to mum, what's he going to do to me?’” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

“But after the sentence was handed down, we were able to explain to them, 'You never have to deal with him again. He's not going to pop up one day and knock at the door, or you're not going to be walking home from school and see him parked out the front. It's not going to happen’.

“So that gave them a considerable sense of relief that they were finally rid of him.”

Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton was awarded the 2025 Mick Miller Detective of the Year, Victoria Police’s highest investigative honour, for his work on this case.

But he and his colleagues have also ensured Kylie’s three eldest children – Cassie, Ashleigh and Jessica*, who was aged 11 at the time – will be honoured for their incredible courage during the fire, nominating them for bravery awards.

Next month in April they are set to receive the awards – Cassie for trying to save her burning mother, Jessica for carrying her 10-month-old baby brother out from near the flames, and Ashleigh for breaking back into the house through a window to rescue her two-month-old brother from his cot, despite having suffered burns to half her own body.

“The bravery of these kids was just unbelievable and they are true heroes for what they did,” Det Ldg Sen Const Hatton said.

* Each of the children’s names have been changed to protect their identities.