(LifeSiteNews) — A Wisconsin college professor has been charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, arson, and mistreatment of animals causing death for allegedly murdering his pregnant mistress and torching her home after she refused to get an abortion.

The second charge of first-degree intentional homicide is for the unborn child.

On November 13, 27-year-old Alexis Pickett, who was pregnant, and her dog were found dead in her La Crosse home after officials responded to a fire. After conducting an autopsy, a medical examiner found that Pickett had been killed prior to the blaze. Thirty-eight-year-old Matthew Sierra, with whom she had been conducting a years-long affair, was placed at the scene by cell phone data and surveillance footage.

According to a friend of the murdered woman, Sierra had been furious to discover that his mistress was pregnant. The couple already shared a two-year-old son, who was reportedly staying at the friend’s home at the time of the fire.

“All I know is that they have been on and off and they have been constantly fighting because he found out she was pregnant with his kid and he didn’t want anything to do with it,” the friend told police. Sierra “wanted [Pickett] to have an abortion but [Pickett] did not want to do that.” Sierra allegedly told Pickett that if she did not abort their child, he would take full custody of their toddler son.

Pickett, however, did not want to have an abortion, and had already posted about her pregnancy on Facebook, writing: “Me and [my son] forever. New addition coming soon. [My son’s] going to be a big bro.” Sierra’s wife knew of the affair, as well as the fact that he had fathered a son with Pickett.

After the fire was set, “Sierra did not immediately flee from the scene but instead drove a short distance and stayed there until multiple smoke alarms could be heard going off inside Pickett’s apartment building, per a timeline assembled by police in the complaint, based on surveillance video,” People reported. The fire was allegedly set to cover up the murder.

In short: Pickett would not kill their unborn child, and so Sierra killed them both.

He was arrested on December 17; charges were initially dismissed at a hearing on December 23 and refiled by prosecutors on December 26. Sierra, who was a mechanical design instructor at Western Technical College, has been placed on administrative leave and is being held on a $1 million bond pending his next court appearance, a preliminary hearing on January 5.

This horrifying case bears remarkable similarities to the case of Donovan Faison, who was convicted in October of murdering his 18-year-old girlfriend Kaylin Fiengo after she refused to abort their unborn child. Faison lured her to a park in Sanford, Florida, and instead of celebrating the pregnancy as she thought, he shot her in the head. Faison was also convicted of killing both the mother and the unborn child.

Abortion is legal up until 20 weeks in Wisconsin, meaning that unborn children can be legally killed in the womb almost until viability (a premature baby born in Iowa last year at 21 weeks survived). There may be justice for Alexis Pickett’s baby, but in a perverse irony of Wisconsin’s legal system, she could have killed her without consequence—which is precisely what the baby’s father wanted her to do.