Police in Texas are investigating the discovery of three young girls and their mother who were found hanged yesterday in a mobile home near Fort Worth.
A fourth child, an 8-month-old daughter, was also found dangling in the closet but was rescued from the family's mobile home.
Police said the dead girls were believed to be age 5, 3 and 2.
While the four deaths in the trailer park west of Fort Worth appeared to be a murder/suicide, local police were not saying anything definitive pending the results of autopsies due to be performed today.
The mother, identified as Gilberta Estrada, aged 25, apparently hanged three of her small daughters and herself in a closet using pieces of clothing and sashes.
All of the victims were found in a closet by Estrada's sister who forced her way into the locked residence in the Oak Hills mobile home park, about 25 miles west of Fort Worth, after she failed to turn up for work.
A local sheriff said the sister rescued the infant when she realized the baby girl was still alive.
The sheriff said the hangings appeared to be murder-suicide because the trailer's doors were locked from the inside and a relative said the woman had been depressed.
The young mother and her girls were last seen alive Monday evening, he said.
Agencies.