Little Rock police say 3 dead in apartment, including 2 kids

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — Little Rock police say three people, including children ages 4 and 5, were found dead in an apartment Tuesday in what is believed to be a triple-homicide.

Police spokesman Officer Steve Moore says investigators were summoned to the apartment and found the bodies of a 24-year-old woman and a boy and a girl who were believed to be her children. Moore did not say how the victims died, or a motive. A relative of the woman called officers after the children did not show up at school and the relative was not able to reach the woman.

"Two o'clock's the time that we found them. As far as the time the incident occurred, that's still unknown right now," Moore said Tuesday afternoon outside the apartment.

Officers said on Twitter that they were looking for the woman's 2004 Honda Accord.

The city had been on a pace to approach a record-high homicide rate but violence tapered off amid additional patrols that began in August. That month, two children died in what police said was a double murder-suicide.

Moore says all three of Tuesday's deaths are believed to be homicides and pushed the city's total for 2017 to 55. Justice Department records show Little Rock had 68 deaths in 1993 that were attributed to murder or manslaughter.