Bodies Of 4 Girls Found in SE House

Deaths Treated As Homicides

U.S. marshals serving a routine eviction notice in Southeast Washington yesterday were met at the door by a calm woman who offered no clue about what would be found inside the house: the decomposing bodies of four girls, believed to be her children.

Authorities said the girls -- ages 5, 7, 9 and 17 -- were found upstairs in the two-story home and might have been dead for two weeks or longer. How they died remains a mystery, and the woman, 33, was being questioned last night at police headquarters.

Police said that they were treating the deaths as homicides, pending a medical examiner's ruling, and that no one has been arrested.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the causes of death had not been determined because of the decomposition of the bodies. "It makes it difficult to determine obvious signs of trauma," she said.

Police did not release the name of the woman, because she has not been charged with a crime, or the names of the children. "It will take us some time to verify the identities of the children," Lanier said.

A knife was found next to the skeletal remains of the eldest child in an upstairs bedroom, authorities said. The other bodies, not as badly decomposed, were in a separate bedroom. Downstairs, the home was bare and had no furniture.

Lanier sought to reassure neighborhood residents by saying that there were no signs of forced entry to the house. "I don't want the impression that someone kicked in the door and carried out this crime," she said.

Lanier said the woman was cooperating with investigators. Several police sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, raised questions about the woman's mental health. Neighbors said she often seemed dazed when they saw her in recent months.

The home where the bodies were found, in the 4200 block of Sixth Street SE, is a two-story brick rowhouse painted grayish-blue. Until yesterday, nothing made it stand out in the Washington Highlands neighborhood.

The home had been sold to a mortgage company in the spring after a foreclosure, and three marshals arrived there yesterday at 9:30 a.m. with eviction papers. At first, everything seemed normal. "The lady was calm. She was not distraught in any way," said Cole Barnhart, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service.

The marshals service, which carries out evictions for D.C. Superior Court, typically completes a search before clearing out a house. Such a search turned up the bodies and led to calls to D.C. police, the medical examiner's office, the fire department and other agencies.

The block quickly was transformed into a crime scene, with police cruisers, yellow tape and a wagon from the D.C. medical examiner's office parked on the street. Dozens of officers, many in protective suits and masks, worked in and around the house. It was not until 3 p.m. that authorities brought out the four bodies, one after the other, strapped to stretchers and wrapped in body bags. Neighbors expressed shock.