Police: Phoenix Mom Kills 3 Young Sons, Stabs Herself

A baby, a 5-year-old, and an 8-year-old were found in a closet
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jun 2, 2016 2:07 PM CDT
Police: Phoenix Mom Kills 3 Young Sons, Stabs Herself
Law enforcement officials stand outside a home, Thursday, June 2, 2016 in Phoenix where three boys were killed during a several hour period Wednesday night.   (AP Photo/Matt York)

An Arizona woman stabbed her three young sons to death and put their bodies in a closet before she tried to kill herself at their home, police said Thursday. The woman's brother called 911 after returning to the northwest Phoenix home late Wednesday and finding she had locked him out, Sgt. Trent Crump said. The brother eventually entered the home and found his 29-year-old sister with self-inflicted stab wounds, the AP reports. While he was getting towels for her bleeding, she tried to drown herself in a bathtub, Crump said. Officers searched the home and found the dead boys—ages 2 months old and 5 and 8 years old—in a closet. The youngest boy's body was in a case of some kind in the closet, Crump said. It was an "absolutely horrific scene for the officers and the brother," he said.

The mother was hospitalized in critical condition with neck and abdomen wounds, he said. She is expected to survive. "She will be in the hospital for some time with some very serious self-inflicted injuries," Crump said. "It's a murder investigation at this point." No identities were released. When the woman initially spoke with her brother in the garage after he returned home, she talked about what "she had found in life or what she needed in life," Crump said. Beyond that, the woman's family members have no answers and "don't know what set this off," Crump said. The woman and her children live with her brother and the siblings' mother, Crump said. "There's no father in the picture." Crump said police had unconfirmed information that the woman might have been pregnant. "It may have been a reason why she had self-inflicted stab wounds" in the abdomen, he said. He said police were unaware of any documented history of mental illness. (More murder stories.)

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