4 found dead in Chester apartment; cause of deaths unknown

Rose Fox says she hopes her neighbors didn't scream.

She lives just three doors down from the apartment building in Chester where three young adults and a toddler were found dead Saturday night with no visible signs of trauma.

"I don't know if they went when they were in their sleep or if they were screaming for help," she said. "That's the worst part. That's what makes me feel so bad.

"God, I hope they went in their sleep. I just hope they weren't screaming for our help."

When Fox saw a swarm of cop cars converge on the apartment building on Keystone Road near Ninth Street, she thought it was a drug-related incident.

She thought it was "just another day on the streets" of Chester.

But according to police and fire officials, it was anything but.

Police said they were called to the apartment by the renter's mother for a well-being check. Inside, they found two women and a man, all in their early 20s, along with the boy toddler. All four individuals, who have not been identified by police, were pronounced dead at the scene.

There were no signs of forced entry into the second-floor apartment and no visible injuries to the victims, who were found in the living room and a bedroom, police said.

The Fire Department has ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning and the Delaware County Medical Examiner's Office worked well into yesterday afternoon to conduct an autopsy report on the victims, which officials said would be released this morning.

Fox said she'd seen the occupants of the recently renovated apartment, a young mother and her 3-year-old son, move in about three or four weeks ago.

"I didn't even get a chance to introduce myself to her," she said.

But Saturday night, Fox said she met the young woman's mother, who came to the scene and told her that her daughter had recently moved out so she could "start having her own responsibilities."

The other two individuals in the apartment, Fox said, were the woman's friend and the friend's boyfriend.

Fox said the woman's mother was "going crazy" because she was not getting any information about what happened from police.

The woman then asked to come in her apartment to watch the news, Fox said, because she thought that police were telling the TV cameras more than they were telling her.

"I was trying to comfort her but there is no comforting someone when your daughter and grandbaby died," Fox said.

When the woman's mother left Fox's apartment, she said she was going to tell her daughter's three siblings about what had happened, Fox said.

Rick Nickerson, who lives in the neighborhood and was visiting the block when the discovery was made Saturday night, said he thought the initial commotion was over a gas leak.

"But it turned out to be something sadder and more bizarre," he said. "I hope that whatever it is that happened to them doesn't happen to anyone else." *