MONTREAL - Police officers who showed up at an east-end Montreal home Wednesday morning to break the news of a family member's death instead discovered the bodies of a woman and her two young sons inside.
Police say a woman, 42, and two boys, ages four and two, were found dead in a home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Montreal's Pointe-aux-Trembles district.
Const. Manuel Couture said a man who died by suicide Tuesday in Joliette, north of Montreal, has been identified as the father of the two boys.
A heavy presence of police and emergency vehicles could be seen Wednesday outside the modest brick townhouse, which was blocked off by orange police tape.
Police had been dispatched at around 8 a.m. to announce the death of a family member who lived at the address. When there was no answer, they entered to discover the woman and her boys, all of whom were declared dead at the scene.
Couture says the house is considered a crime scene, and investigators and technicians were expected on site.
Yann Kedja, a 19-year-old neighbour, said he believes the family had been living at the address for about two years. He never met the father but would see the children playing outside in the summer.
"I saw the kids outside having fun and playing, and the mother was there having fun with them," he said, calling the deaths a "horrible tragedy."