Background: Police investigate what they believe was a murder-suicide outside a parking garage in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania (WPXI/YouTube). Inset (from left to right): Caroline Lynch, Patrick Lynch and James Lynch (Facebook).
A father in Pennsylvania is believed to have forced his two young children to fall to their deaths from a parking garage — and then jumped from the building himself.
The Allegheny County Police Department announced that a man and two children were pronounced dead on Tuesday in an apparent murder-suicide. They were identified by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office as Patrick Lynch, 42, James Lynch, 8, and Caroline Lynch, 6, according to regional NBC affiliate WPXI.
On Tuesday at about 4:15 p.m., authorities were told that there were "three people unresponsive on Municipal Way" in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania. The municipality is just southwest of Pittsburgh.
Emergency workers rushed to the scene and found the father and his two children "suffering injuries from an apparent fall." Though they made lifesaving efforts, medics pronounced all three dead.
Investigators identified the victims and learned that the man was the father of the two children. Police suggested that night that they had an idea about what had happened, encouraging "anyone suffering from mental health issues to seek assistance from a mental health professional."
"We really want to right now ask the public to keep the victim family in your prayers," Mount Lebanon Police Chief Jason Haberman added, noting that the investigation was ongoing but they were "treating this incident not as an accident."
"I will say that right now, there will be a significant amount of trauma associated with this event to the community," the chief added, according to WPXI. "Our condolences to everybody involved, the victims' families, friends; everybody within the Mt. Lebanon community will know somebody involved with this incident."
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