The deaths of four
people in a Scarborough home are now being treated as a murder-suicide,
police sources confirmed this morning.
On Wednesday, four people
were found dead in a home on Welwyn Ave. after a note was seen on the
door warning, "Do not enter, call police."
The victims have not
been formally identified, but neighbours believe they are Keith and
Wanda Delong, who owned the home, and their two adult children, Richard
and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth's husband, James Tompkins, was taken in
for questioning by police yesterday morning, but was released without
charges early today.
More details are expected to be released during a news conference at police headquarters this afternoon.
Police
saying the incident appears to be one of family violence. This morning,
they classified three of the four deaths as homicides, but did not
immediately say which of the family members was believed to have
committed the killings.
"It's shocking," said Seth Rogers, who
said he has lived next to the family for more than 30 years. "It's
terrible. They were quiet, nice people."
"I seen (Tompkins)
weeping and the cops came and took him under arrest, in handcuffs,"
Rogers said. "He just kept looking over at the house."
At about
7: 30 a.m. Rogers had become suspicious as he got ready for work. It
was the unusual quiet about the Delong residence that caught his
attention.
"There was no noise," he said. "Keith usually comes out and feeds his birds and walks the dog."
Throughout
the day yesterday yellow police tape cordoned off a block of homes on
Welwyn Ave. Similar tape was strung around a Whitby apartment complex
where Tompkins and his wife own an apartment. Neighbours said they had
been married for a couple of years, but had been together for more than
a decade.
Tompkins, a welder, bought the apartment in 1997, then added Elizabeth to the title in 2003, using her maiden name.
Her Suzuki Sidekick was parked in front of her parents' bungalow yesterday. Tompkins's Sidekick was parked just in front of it.
Neighbours
on Welwyn Ave. said Elizabeth had arrived at her parents' home on
Tuesday evening to help them get ready for a last-minute trip to
Mexico, where her 92-year-old grandmother is dying.
The
grandmother, who lives in Mexico, broke her hip several months ago, but
took a turn for the worse in the past few weeks, said neighbour and
close friend Peter Lemonides.
He said Keith Delong had asked
him two days ago to look out for their son Richard, 30, who lived at
home and had a chronic illness, described as a "degenerative bone
disease." The parents had planned to be gone for a week or two.
"It's
unbelievable," Lemonides said of the tragedy in his quiet
neighbourhood. "I didn't hear anything. ... I'm the one in the
neighbourhood who knows what's going on. And I was closest with them.
And I didn't hear anything."
When he went to bed Tuesday night,
Lemonides didn't see Tompkins' vehicle out front. He assumes it arrived
in the early morning.
While Tompkins was at 43 Division police
station yesterday, a woman identifying herself as his sister said her
brother hadn't heard from his wife Tuesday night and got worried, so he
drove to Toronto to check on her. That's when he found the note, she
said, and called police.
Back on Welwyn Ave., still reeling from the news, neighbours sifted through their memories of the family for clues.
As
for the parents, Keith, a retired IBM employee, and Wanda, a homemaker,
were "wonderful people," their neighbours said. Wanda's family is from
Quebec while Keith's family lives in the United States.
Tidy,
quiet and friendly, they would walk their caramel-coloured poodle
Charlotte and help friends with odd jobs around the home and yard, such
as cutting hedges or mending broken doors.
"And they loved to go camping," Lemonides said. "Real outdoor people. They had a trailer they would use."
The couple, who had guns on display in their home, were avid fisherman and nature lovers, Lemonides added.
Brenda
Whynot, who lives down the street, said Keith and Wanda brought over
warm cookies when they moved in nearly three years ago - they were
"that kind of people."
"They seemed to be one happy little family," she said. "They were great people."
She
added that in the last few months the family had been clearing out
their home, selling furniture and other household paraphernalia.
Neighbour
Philip Matthew said Keith had been dropping off chandeliers and other
items at his home, where he runs a small recycling business.
"They were getting rid of a lot of stuff," Whynot said of the Delongs. "It wasn't typical."
Others suggested the couple was running out of money.
On Sept. 30, the Delongs remortgaged for $240,000 the house they had bought in 1974.
No one on the street heard any unusual noise Tuesday night - no gunshots, no screams - and they were all horrified by the news.
Police canvassed the area yesterday and spent time scouring the Delongs' back porch where a large saw hung down from the floor.
"Keith was so tidy," Rogers said. "He never would have left that saw like that. It's weird."