The teddy bear sitting on the steps in the picture above is there in memory of the three child, their grandmother and their uncle who was found dead inside of their garage on Monday. It seems there was a custody dispute between the grandmother and uncle in which led to the grandmother and uncle locking themselves and the three kids in the garage to die. Click below to read the full story.
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Caught up in a family disagreement over who should care for three young children, a grandmother and her son barricaded themselves and the kids in a garage and filled it with deadly carbon monoxide gas. All five died.
Police spent Tuesday trying to explain the heartbreaking scene discovered a day earlier at the home of 54-year-old Sandy Ford and her son Andy in a quiet Toledo neighborhood.
Firefighter’s using a sledgehammer broke down the garage door to find the bodies of 5-year-old Madalyn Hayes, her 6-year-old brother Logan and 10-year-old sister Paige slumped inside a car, along with their grandmother and uncle. Two hoses attached to the exhaust of a pickup truck pumped gas fumes through the car’s rear window.
Police said letters inside the house indicated the woman and her son plotted the murder-suicide, beginning by picking up the children from school Monday morning after their mother had dropped them off earlier.
They also had disabled the garage door opener and nailed plywood over the windows, said Toledo police Sgt. Joe Heffernan. He wouldn’t say what was in the letters, but it appeared some were written by the children.
“We’re trying to figure out all the why’s in this,” he said.
Authorities were called to the home by the children’s frantic grandfather after he discovered the letters and was unable to force open the garage door. Despite the grisly scene, investigators found no signs the children were forced into the car and believe all five died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Until last week, the children had spent the last three years living with their grandparents, Sandy and Randy Ford, and their uncle at the house in a residential neighborhood close to the Michigan state line.
Their mother, Mandy Hayes, had asked her mom for help caring for the three children because a fourth child at the home was becoming disruptive, said children’s services representatives and a family friend.
