Washington - Police report the mother of an eight-year-old child found with a stab wound in a charred SE home may be responsible for her tragic death.

It happened Friday morning inside a home on 11th Place, where a 29-year-old mother is suspected of killing her daughter before setting the house on fire. In fact, sources tell ABC 7/NewsChannel 8 reporter Jennifer Donelan that the mother will be arrested and police are investigating if she was high on PCP when she killed her daughter.

"What can a child do that a mother would hate her so much to do that to her," asked Elsie Long, a neighbor.

Flashing lights, crime scene tape and disbelief surrounded the house where a horrifying scene unfolded around 6:45 a.m. Friday. That is where police say an 8-year-old girl was found unconscious in an upstairs bedroom. According to sources, she was covered in blood and it appeared she had been stabbed by her mother.

"She's a normal little child...she's always in the backyard playing...it's just so sad when you lose children like that, so young," said Sandra Seegars, a neighbor.

Police raced to the home after sources say the mother walked three blocks, wearing no clothes, to 13th and Congress Streets where she found a police officer. After knocking on the officer's window, she allegedly told the officer she had stabbed herself and that her house was on fire and her daughter was still inside.

The D.C. fire department confirms that a call came in at 6:31 a.m. about smoke in a building at 3314 11th Place SE. Firefighters arrived at 6:35 a.m. and saw smoke showing from the second floor. Fire crews entered and found an young girl with unspecified injuries.

"When the officers got here they encountered the fire and we called the fire department," said Lt. Peter Hunt, D.C. police.

Neighbor Claude Neville described, "I heard my dog barking and I looked out the window. There's a lot of smoke coming out other window and I saw firemen pulling a little girl out."

Police say the girl died at a hospital and her mother, suffering from a collapsed lung, was in critical condition as of Friday morning.

No one in the neighborhood knew much about the mother and daughter who live in the residence with another man. They moved into the home about a year ago and were renting under the Section 8 Program. The mother, neighbors say, didn't speak to anyone.

"She didn't seem normal...all there," said Claude Neville, a neighbor.

ABC 7/NewsChannel 8 has also learned that evidence found inside the home supports that the mother was struggling financially. Also we are told there is another child, an older boy,  who may be living with the children's father. They are trying to make contact with the father. Fire investigators say it appears the fire was intentionally set. 

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