Firefighters tried to rescue the little girl from the second story, but she did not survive. Sunday evening police were questioning one of the victim's relatives.
It happened on Red Tail Hawk Lane and Lake Houston. Relatives were asleep upstairs and had to jump out of a second floor window to escape the flames. They did not know that the Bastrea Peace, 5, was upstairs. They thought she had gone to church with her grandmother, but later heard her crying from the window. Peace later died at the hospital.
Relative Katrina Miller, 27, was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital with burns on her body.
Arson investigators are confirming what the family's belief that the fire was intentionally set. Police have arrested Tracy Raynard Bush, 46, who is a relative of the victim's.
The family is heartbroken and said they could not get to Peace in time.
"My aunt is taking it a little harder," said the five-year-old's cousin Anthony Miller. "She's blaming herself and she shouldn't. She did everything she could. If she would have gone back in there it would have been her too. Then it would have been us losing two more people."
"It's just that little voice," said Terry Harris who is the victim's aunt. "I told her to go to the playroom. My niece tried to get her and got burned up. I thought she had gone to church, I wouldn't have run out."
Relatives tell Eyewitness News that Bush did not live in the home, but said he had made threatening statements to family members.
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