Osceola County police officers responded to the scene on Monday of a quadruple homicide at a family home in Celebration, Florida, and have taken one person into custody.
Deputies with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office responded to the home at 202 Reserve Place in the North Village area at 9 a.m. on Monday. Police have released very little information about the identity of the victims and what exactly transpired at the scene.
“Detectives and crime scene investigators are on scene and are at the very beginning stages of this investigation. This is an isolated incident, and all parties involved with this death investigation are accounted for,” Sheriff Russ Gibson said at a short press conference on Monday, WESH-TV reported.
OCSO deputies are conducting a death investigation in the North Village area at Celebration. Media staging area is located at Celebration Blvd and Reeves Street. pic.twitter.com/aDvvwL7ecG
— Osceola Sheriff (@OsceolaSheriff) January 13, 2020
However, neighbor Connie McGarian told Fox35 that a family with three young children lived there. She described them as the “perfect family.”
“The children always when I would go to the elevator to take my trash out they would ask me if they could take it out, and they would hold the door for me,” McGarian told the outlet.
Osceola County Court records show that the family faced eviction due to failure to pay rent. WESH 2 obtained a copy of a lawsuit from two days before Christmas that was intended to oust the family.
“When I was parking my car, I saw a lot of police around,” another neighbor, Marcelo Rodrigues, said, according to Fox. He said he later saw police entering the house shouting, “Open the door.” Later, a man came out in handcuffs.
“I saw a lot of police with guns in their hand saying, ‘Open the door, open the door,’ and a few minutes later I saw the guy on the porch with handcuffs, and I said something bad happened over there,” Rodrigues told WESH 2.
Rodrigues took a picture of the man in handcuffs and told the news outlet he is positive it was the father of the children that got arrested.
Police reportedly did a wellness check after several neighbors called saying they hadn’t seen the children playing outside for days.