NY cops say dad shot 2 daughters several times

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. (AP) - A father who used a rifle to kill his two young girls and himself at a campground in northern New York shot his 3-year-old daughter four times and her 10-year-old sister twice, authorities said Wednesday.

Adam Parcells, 29, may have killed the girls Monday night while they slept, Warren County sheriff's investigators said. They had different mothers, and 3-year-old Mia Parcells' mother was separating from him after filing for divorce in May.

Investigators were looking at whether Parcells might have been disconsolate over financial woes and his grandmother's death in late August.

Meanwhile, police in western New York, where the family lived, said the mothers had contacted them separately over the Labor Day weekend with concerns about the missing girls.

Parcells, who lived in Hilton near Rochester, had been staying with the girls since Saturday in an isolated section of the 168-acre Adirondack Camping Village in the well-known tourist areas near Lake George, about 200 miles north of New York.

The bodies were found Tuesday, four days after Noel Parcells' mother told Rochester police he had taken their 10-year-old daughter camping without her permission.

On Friday, she told officers that Parcells assured her by cell phone he would bring her home later that night. Because police "were given no indications that the child was in imminent danger or threat of physical harm," no Amber Alert, indicating a child abduction, was issued, Rochester police Officer Stephen Scott said Wednesday.

The mother called again Monday night, and Rochester police filed a crime report charging Parcells with criminal contempt, a misdemeanor, Scott said. Minutes after she completed a missing person report Tuesday, Rochester police were notified of the slayings, he said.

The younger girl's mother, who lives in suburban Rochester, notified the Monroe County sheriff's office Monday night that her estranged husband had not brought the girl home that day as expected.

The sheriff's office also did not issue an Amber Alert because Parcells was only "a few hours late" in dropping Mia off, said a spokesman, Cpl. John Helfer.

The .45-caliber rifle used in the killings was bought at a sporting goods store in Rochester in July, Warren County Sheriff Bud York said.