Four bodies found in Hampshire house

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jul/27/hampshire-family-fordingbridge

Version 0 of 1.

The bodies of a man, a woman and two young children have been found in a house in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, police have confirmed .

The discovery was made at around 11.20am at a house in Provost Street by the children's grandmother. The deaths are thought to be the result of a domestic dispute that culminated in murders and a suicide.

The family were named locally as Andrew and Vicki Case and their daughters, Phoebe, two, and Nereya, one.

A neighbour, Alayna Brooks, 53, went to the house when the bodies were found. Brooks said the grandmother had come out of the house screaming: "All my babies are dead!" Entering the house, Brooks found the mother, in her 30s, dead in the dining room with a plastic bag over her head.

She then went upstairs and found the girls dead on a bed. Both children and the woman had received stab wounds. The man was found hanged.

The emergency services were called after neighbours heard screams, according to local reports.

Fordingbridge lies on the western edge of the New Forest. The house is set back from terraced and detached homes in the street. The mayor of Fordingbridge, Councillor Malcolm Connolly, told the local Daily Echo newspaper: "The loss of young lives is always tragic and it leads to the question why something like this happens. It's a small town. These people will have been known to many and it will have a major impact on the lives of residents."

Acting Superintendent Gary Cooper, of Hampshire police, confirmed that it was a member of the family who had found the bodies. "We believe it was a relative who came to the address this morning," he said. "On entering … they found four people dead. The scene is still being examined as it is a very recent incident. It is a very unusual occurrence, but something we are investigating with scenes-of-crime officers and the major crime branch."

Brooks said she knew of the family, who had just come back from a holiday in Weymouth: "They were so loved up … In fact, if I had a marriage, I would have loved their marriage – they just loved each other." She described the girls as gorgeous.

Another neighbour, Jeremy Pentecost, 27, said he had run out of his house, which overlooks the property where the families were discovered. "I didn't go into the house. Someone stopped me going in, and I'm glad they did, to be honest. I didn't want to see that. They seemed a nice couple, and I joked with him sometimes outside."

A Hampshire police spokeswoman confirmed that the bodies were removed from the house last night and postmortems would take place on the adults today.

The spokeswoman would not confirm or deny that police were looking for anyone in connection with the deaths.