Mother, 2 children found dead in Brooklyn; Police have possible suspect in custody

Mother, 2 children found dead in Brooklyn

NEW YORK — A mother and her two little girls were found wrapped in plastic bags Friday, dead of apparent stab wounds, after the woman’s boyfriend opened the door to police to reveal the bloody disheveled scene, officials said.

Police took the boyfriend, Jermaine Ruiz, into custody and charges were pending. They were called to the home near the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn after Ruiz’ father walked into a Bronx police precinct earlier in the day and told officers his son had phoned to say he’d killed the children, NYPD’s deputy chief for public information Paul J. Browne said.

About 1 p.m., two plainclothes officers arrived at the home where Ruiz lived with this 22-year-old girlfriend and her two girls — ages 2 and 5. He answered, and they noticed the woman on the floor to his left, bloodied, partially wrapped in plastic garbage bags, Browne said.

The officers quickly arrested the 24-year-old Ruiz, who did not resist. When they searched the apartment, they found the girls, also believed to be stabbed, in the common area, wrapped in a carpet, tied, and shoved into plastic bags, Browne said.

A knife hasn’t been recovered, but police were still actively investigating the scene, Browne said. The victims’ names were not released pending family notification. Ruiz made statements implicating himself in the crime, Browne said. It wasn’t clear if Ruiz had an attorney, there was no phone number listed for his father’s address.

The couple lived together in the second-floor apartment in a three-story building for the past six months, police said. They were both unemployed, police said.

Investigators believe the woman and her children were stabbed after a loud, raging fight that started late Wednesday evening outside the home and continued inside. The fight was overheard by neighbors, police said. He spent a day with the three corpses in the apartment before calling his father Friday to confess, police said.

But there was no history of domestic violence at the scene, and police didn’t have a motive in the crimes.