Police find infant and teen dead in Ontario home’s garage; mother unresponsive

An infant and teenager were found dead inside the garage of a home in Ontario on Tuesday, while their mother was hospitalized with injuries, authorities said.

Homicide detectives are investigating the case as a “suspicious death,” though they have not yet determined the circumstances surrounding the childrens’ deaths, said Ontario Police Department Sgt. Bill Russell. The nature of the woman’s injuries was not immediately made public.

Shortly after 4 p.m., police were called to a home in the 500 block of Tam O’Shanter Street, Russell said. At the home, officers had found two children and their mother, who was unresponsive at the time, all in the two-story home’s garage. The children were girls, ages 14 years and 4 months, Russell said.

Paramedics transported the mother to a local hospital where she was reported to be stable. The children were pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said personnel from the Ontario Fire Department ruled that death via carbon monoxide was unlikely, and that coroner personnel still had to establish cause of death.

A man identified as the father of the children and the woman’s husband made the initial call to police, Russell said. He was at the home when police arrived and was being questioned.

“We don’t know if the father was here at the time of the death, and that’s one of the things we’re still trying to figure out,” Russell noted.

Russell said the scope of the investigation was currently limited to the residence.

“There’s more questions than answers right now, because we’re only two hours into this,” he said.

Police said there was no threat to the neighborhood, but told residents to stay out of the area.

Priscilla Roman, a neighborhood resident, said she’s unaware of anything like this happening before in the neighborhood.

“We’re a really calm neighborhood, for the most part,” Roman said, while standing on the lawn of a home just around the corner from where the bodies and injured women were found. “Nothing like this has ever happened. I think there’s maybe been like one drug raid here (in the neighborhood), but nothing of this scope.”

She said she believes she’s seen the family before, but didn’t know them personally.

“We’re just trying to figure out what happened, because this is our neighborhood. It’s extremely sad and so close to home,” Roman said.