Woman Killed By Partner Texted Daughter To Say Goodbye Before Her Death: Police

A woman in Northern Territory (NT), Australia, who was burned to death by her partner texted her young daughter to say goodbye in the hours before the mother died, NT's top policeman said.

The 34-year-old victim, whose name has not been disclosed, was seeking shelter in a separate room in a house at an Alice Springs town camp when her 36-year-old partner poured accelerant over the door and under the door and set it on fire last month, NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker said.

Chalker, who was speaking at an anti-family violence event in Darwin, Northern Territory, said that the woman sent her daughter a text message in the hours before she died, Australia's ABC News reported.

"She sent a text message that said, 'Today your dad is going to kill me. I love you, please don't cry for me,'" the police commissioner was quoted as saying by the outlet.

Chalker said during the event that police needed to "do things far better."

Emergency services were called to the fire at a residence in the Hidden Valley Town Camp, located on the fringes of Alice Springs in central Australia, on the night of Nov. 5.

The woman was taken to the Alice Springs Hospital with significant burns and died two days later. Her partner, whose identity was also not released, later died of burn injuries as well.

The woman’s partner was arrested three days before the fire for breaching a domestic violence order. He was granted bail by police before he killed the victim.

At the time of the incident, Detective Senior Sergeant Michael Schumacher said the victim's death was a "needless tragedy," ABC News previously reported.

Commissioner Chalker said he felt "a sense of failure" over worsening rates of domestic violence in Northern Territory.

He said that the past year was the "worst it's been" and that NT police had responded to about 10,000 domestic violence incidents a year over the past decade.

The 34-year-old woman was the second to die in an alleged domestic violence-related homicide in Alice Springs this year and the third to die in the NT.

In January, 46-year-old R. Rubuntja, a prominent anti-domestic violence campaigner, died after 49-year-old Malcolm Abbott drove a vehicle at the woman outside the Alice Springs Hospital, police alleged. Authorities said Abbott was known to Rubuntja.

Rubuntja suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene.