Two adults and two children found dead in possible murder-suicide on New York’s Upper West Side

Two adults and two children have been found dead in an apartment on New York’s Upper West Side in what police say could be a murder-suicide.

The deceased are a man aged 41, a 40-year-old woman, a one-year-old boy and his three-year-old sibling. There were conflicting media reports over whether the three-year-old was a girl or a boy.

NBC News said the adults had suffered trauma wounds to their necks and said the children had sustained trauma injuries to their bodies. CBS New York said the four had suffered stab wounds. The New York Times, quoting an internal police report, said that three knives were found at the scene.

A police spokesperson told NBC: “I’m not sure how those injuries were sustained. That is part of an ongoing investigation. It was possibly a murder-suicide, but that’s not been definitively determined yet.”

The man’s father – who reportedly works as a superintendent at a nearby building – had been trying to contact his son and, when he couldn’t get through by phone, went to his apartment at at 328 West 86th St, close to Riverside Park.

The New York Times said he drilled a hole in the door, through which he saw his son’s wife bleeding to death, and then raised the alarm. The paper said firefighters had to break the door down to get entry to the apartment, where the rest of the family were discovered.

All four were declared dead at the scene.