Triple Slaying Ruled Out in Deaths of Md. Family Found in Car in Hagerstown

Hagerstown police have ruled out the possibility that a woman and her two young daughters found dead in their car were killed by someone else.

Capt. Paul Kifer said Thursday that investigators hope toxicology tests will show whether the 32-year-old woman deliberately killed herself and her children, ages six months and 18 months, or if they died accidentally in the closed vehicle on a 90-degree day. Those tests could take weeks.

Kifer says the car had been parked for hours in the Western Heights Middle School parking lot where the bodies were found Monday afternoon.

A school employee, leaving on the last day for teachers before summer break, spotted the bodies around 4:40 p.m. Monday.

Kifer says police hope to release the names of the deceased Thursday after speaking with the woman's family members. She was from Guyana, and had recently moved to Hagerstown from West Virginia.

The woman had no criminal history and no history of domestic incidents between her and the children's father. Neither the woman nor the children had any known connection to the school in the city's West End, at least three miles from their rented home in the East End, Kifer said.

The children's father lives in Hagerstown but didn't live with the mother and was never married to her, Kifer said.

Classes at Western Heights ended last week.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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