Police conducted a welfare check Wednesday at a California home, only to find three children under the age of eight dead and a woman injured in an apparent murder-suicide attempt.
Deputies from the Merced County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) were called to conduct a welfare check on Brice Street in Le Grand and found the three deceased children and the injured woman Wednesday afternoon, according to a Facebook post from the sheriff’s office. Police said they believe the woman’s injuries were self-inflicted. (RELATED: California Lottery Winner Killed In Double Murder-Suicide In Oklahoma, Reports Say)
While investigating the incident, authorities discovered the woman, identified as 31-year-old Patricia Ortiz, allegedly took the lives of her three children, who were ages eight, five and three, according to another Facebook post from the MCSO. She attempted suicide after doing so, the sheriff’s office said.
Ortiz was taken to a hospital in critical condition, The Associated Press reported. Ortiz will later be transported to the county jail and booked for three counts of murder, according to the sheriff’s office.
A neighbor, Elias Vargas, claimed he heard a man shouting and saw him pacing near the apartment complex after the incident. “He said, ‘My kids were killed!’ So, that’s when I realized something serious happened there at the house,” Vargas said, according to local affiliate KFSN.
The investigation is ongoing, and the children’s causes of death are pending, the MCSO stated in a Facebook post.