Twitter/NBC Chicago Jolie, Ill. apparent murder suicide of four including two young children.
Days after five members of a Pennsylvania family were murdered in what the suspects’ claim was a suicide pact, four people in a Joliet, Ill. home were found dead including a man, woman, and two children late Wednesday night, according to local reports.
Neighbors heard a woman screaming outside the house late Wednesday night when she apparently “found the family members dead and called police,” local media reported.
The coroner has yet to release any information on the identities of the dead, the Herald News reported.
According to local reports, family members have identified the dead as Jacquelon Gaskin, 28, Gianna Lee, 6, and Giovanni Lee, 1, and the children’s father, Brandyn Lee.
Four people killed in an apparent murder-suicide in Joliet have been identified by family: t.co/uO3IjPicuv
And a woman who asked for prayers on Facebook, Trina Parish Williams, wrote: “Tragedy has hit relatives of mine, please keep my cousins, my family in prayer.”
Police say it appears to be a murder-suicide, it was reported. Shots were heard from the home late Wednesday night, reports say. Authorities located “a man, woman and two young children deceased inside on the second floor.”
Family members told local media that they “believe Brandyn Lee shot and killed his own family and then turned the gun on himself.”
Rusha Brooks told ABC7 news that her daughter may have been planning on leaving Lee: “My daughter’s children’s father shot everyone and killed them. He killed everybody…She was trying to break away from that and that was the trigger. That was the last bit of control to take everyone away not just himself.”
Monday a family of five were found dead in a Bucks County, Pennsylvania apartment. Charged were Shana Decree, 45, and her daughter Dominique Decree, 19. Murdered were Decree’s two children, ages 13 and 25, her sister and her twin nieces, age 9. The mother and daughter gave conflicting accounts of who killed whom, but claim the killings were part of a suicide pact. Decree’s estranged husband claims she was in a cult.
It’s not yet been confirmed that the four people found dead in the house on the 500 block of Whitley Avenue in Joliet are related.
This is a developing story.