LONDON – Four people have been found dead in a house in northeastern England following a suspected shooting.
The bodies of one man and three females were found inside a semi-detached house in Greenside Avenue, Peterlee, after officers were alerted shortly before 11.45pm on Sunday, Durham police said.
A spokesman said all four were related or known to each other and at this stage they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths.
A shotgun was found lying next to the man’s body.
Police said officers were alerted by a caller reporting that a number of people had been shot inside the property.
Firearms officers were quickly deployed to the scene and when they entered the property they discovered four bodies – one male, three female – in different rooms in the downstairs of the house. All four were dead at the scene.
The man is believed to have been in his early 40s and while the ages of the female victims have not yet been established, it is thought the youngest was in her teens.
A fifth person, a 19-year-old woman thought to be related to one of the victims, was treated at North Tees Hospital in Stockton but has since been discharged after her injuries were found to be minor. She was found by police at another house in the street shortly after officers arrived in Greenside Avenue.
Robert Bailey (72), a long-standing resident of Greenside Avenue, spoke of his shock following the news. He said he knew the people involved by sight only – and they had appeared “normal, ordinary people”.
Meanwhile, a man was arrested in Nuneaton after a woman’s body was found in a car. Warwickshire police detained the 31-year-old shortly before 12.30pm yesterday.
Police were also investigating the suspicious deaths of a man and a woman found at a house in Cheadle, Staffordshire, while a woman was found dead in her car after apparently being kidnapped from her home in Hackney, London. – (PA)