Sarah Oxenreider went to bed happy in her new apartment in North Portland on September 1, 2019. She sent a text to her mom in Oklahoma about the great evening she had meeting her boyfriend’s son: “We talked about Harry Potter. … Hope you’re well, Mom, I love you.”
Her mom, Lezlie Christian, said she and Sarah read Harry Potter together when Sarah was growing up.
“She had just been at her boyfriend’s house and met his son and she was very excited,” Lezlie told KOIN 6 News. “She thought maybe the boy liked her because they talked about Harry Potter.”
But that was the last text message Lezlie would ever get from her 26-year-old daughter. Within hours, an arsonist set her apartment building on fire. Within days, she was dead.
Just after 1:30 a.m. Portland firefighters raced to Sarah’s apartment building in the 3900 block of North Albina Street.
“She awoke because she was coughing and the door was hot, the front door, so she knew she couldn’t get out the front door,” Lezlie said.
Sarah called 911.
“The fire department told her when she called 911 to get into the bathtub and fill it with water,” Lezlie said. “And she did.”