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A 6-year-old boy ran from his Hunting Park home last night, screaming, "My mommy and daddy are dead!" according to neighbors in the 4000 block of Fairhill Street.
A neighbor told the boy, the oldest of five siblings, to go back in and shake his parents, because he might be mistaken.
He wasn't.
He came out screaming again, this time carrying a .38 revolver. He saw his mother's cousin, Thomas Lopez, who was returning to the house, where he also lived.
They went inside and saw the bodies of Jessica Alejandro, 24, and Joshua Garcia-Maldanado, 25, in a second-floor front bedroom, Lopez said.
"The dude was facing her on his knees, like he was praying," Lopez said. "She was laying on the bed."
When Lopez tried to lift her, he saw she had been shot twice, in the left cheek and the left temple, he said.
The couple, originally from Puerto Rico, had lived on the block for at least six years, the last three in the house where they were found, he said.
Police were called at 7:46 p.m., and the couple were pronounced dead at the scene at about 8 p.m.
Besides the 6-year-old, the couple's children included 1-year-old twins, a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old, according to police.
The children, who had no apparent injuries, were cared for last night by the city's Department of Human Services.
This morning, DHS declined to tell whether the children had been placed.
DHS tries to keep siblings together with a suitable relative, said Mark Maher, chief of staff.
This afternoon, neighbors were still in shock.
They gathered near a makeshift memorial that had a red-and-white teddy bear, a Tweety Bird with "The Good Die Young" written on a collar, and a silver helium balloon with the message, "We will miss your smile."
Alejandro sometimes babysat for people on the block, said neighbor Yvette Perez. "She shared everything. She brought food to people. Sometimes I would see her out playing dominos with her kids. . . .She had one person in her life - that was her man."
"He was calm. He was not the type to do this kind of thing," Perez said.
Yesterday morning, Alejandro had walked her 6-year-old to school, while pushing a stroller, Perez said.
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