Father in arson case tried to shove daughter back into flaming house

Intent on burning his entire family to death, a southwestern Wisconsin man tried to shove his 2-year-old daughter back into the flames after her pregnant mother had carried her to safety, state prosecutors alleged Tuesday.

The criminal complaint depicts Armin Wand III as a man so desperate to escape his marital and financial problems that he enlisted his brother in a plot to murder his wife and four young children in their sleep by setting fire to their home for the insurance money.

Two of Wand's sons died in a bedroom that had been locked by Wand's brother, Jeremy, and a third boy died while sleeping on a couch that Jeremy Wand had set on fire, on Armin Wand's orders, the complaint charges.

State prosecutors charged Armin Wand, 32, and Jeremy Wand, 18, both of Argyle, each with three counts of first-degree intentional homicide, two counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and one count of arson, all as party to a crime. Armin Wand faces a third count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide as party to a crime for allegedly trying to kill his daughter twice.

The early-morning fire Friday claimed the lives of Armin Wand's sons Allen, 7, Jeffrey, 5, and Joseph, 3. His wife, Sharon, 27, and daughter Jessica, 2, escaped. But Sharon Wand remains in critical condition at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, and family members say she has lost the baby she carried for 16 weeks.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/father-uncle-charged-with-homicide-arson-in-death-of-three-sons-td6r0i7-169375676.html