Five people, including three toddlers, were found dead in a suburban home in Western Australia in a shocking mass killing that follows a spate of recent family tragedies, police confirmed Monday.
Officers discovered the remains of the three young girls, as well as their mother and grandmother, in the family’s home in Perth, Agence France-Presse reports.
A man in his 20s had alerted the regional police station to the case. His connection to the family has not been disclosed, and while he remains in custody, no charges have been pressed, according to officials.
Western Australia police told AFP that the “five people killed were twin two-year-old girls, a three and a half-year-old girl, their mother and grandmother.”
According to a neighbor, when he returned from a vacation he found his street lacked the usual boisterousness of young children playing.
“We noticed that the house next door was pretty quiet, which was unusual, being that they had the young kids,” Richard Fairbrother, who lives next door to the family’s house, told Australian broadcaster ABC.
“We had some friends staying here who have also mentioned that they didn’t see or hear anybody next door for the week that we were away… we could hear and see the kids playing in the backyard quite often.”
In July, a teenager in Perth was charged with killing his mother and two siblings. Two months earlier, in a small Western Australian town, a man shot dead his wife, daughter and her four children in family murder-suicide.
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