(WABC) — Police in Harlem are investigating a horrific double murder-suicide in which a man appears to have killed his wife and 5-year-old daughter before taking his own life.
Sources tell Eyewitness News that the couple was going through a divorce.
Authorities made the gruesome discovery in an apartment on West 121st Street just after 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Responding officers found the bodies of 42-year-old Jennifer Schlecht and 5-year-old Abaynesh Schlecht Tedla. Both suffered neck trauma, and a knife was recovered at the scene.
The mother’s body was in a bathroom, and the little girl was in a bedroom.
The child’s father, 46-year-old Yonathan Tedla, was also dead in a bedroom.
While there is no documented domestic history against the wife or the child, police say the husband has made prior threats of violence against his wife.
In 2016, she reportedly sought and received a temporary restraining order against her husband for threatening behavior and harassment. The order has since expired.
Their neighbor said she didn’t know about the pending divorce and said they seemed like a loving family.
“I just saw him yesterday, I talk to him every day,” she said. “I mess around in the front all the time, and I see them coming back and forth from school. Kind, sweet, adored his daughter, adored her. I saw both of them, adored her. I’m flipping out, I just can’t.”
The couple was due in court on Wednesday but did not show up. The woman’s brother-in-law called police to request a welfare check.
What puzzles other neighbors and friends is that there did not appear to be any sign of trouble.
“Very, very nice guy,” neighbor Patricia Brodin said. “Some type of guy was friendly with everybody, no trouble guy, mind his business and everything.”
Others were visibly upset at the news and turned to each other for comfort.
“Crime has no place,” one neighbor said. “It doesn’t go to particular neighborhoods, you know, to hear that it is very, very sad.”
The investigation is ongoing.
