BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. (AP) - The deaths of two adults and two children whose bodies were found Friday in a suburban Kansas City home were being investigated as a possible triple homicide and suicide.
Police in Blue Springs did not immediately release the names of the four who died. The bodies were discovered by relatives of a 22-year-old woman who lived in the rented duplex with her two daughters, ages 4 and 2, and a 23-year-old man, Sgt. Joe Fanara said.
He said a handgun was found in the duplex but that the victims died by "multiple means."
"We believe the person responsible is dead," Fanara said, declining to elaborate about who was believed to have caused the deaths.
The girls were found dead on the lower floor of the duplex, and the bodies of the adults were upstairs.
Investigators were trying to confirm the nature of the man and woman's relationship. Fanara said the man was not the father of the 4-year-old, but police were uncertain if he was the 2-year-old's father.
Also uncertain was the time of the deaths. The woman's mother and brother found the bodies around 12:30 p.m. Friday. The relatives had been in contact with her during the previous 24 hours but went to the duplex after being unable to reach her Friday, Fanara said.
The relatives told police they felt there was something "not right with the daughter, and they were coming over to check on her," the police sergeant said.
Police reported no previous calls to the duplex, where the victims had lived for only a short time.
Dillon Sparks, who lives nearby, said he called 911 after he saw a woman come out into the yard of the duplex screaming, "They're all dead!" and "She was scared to leave him!"
"That was what caught my attention," Sparks said. He called 911 and was told that police were already on their way.
Sparks and other neighbors said they had seen the girls playing in the yard and the man recently mowing the lawn.