Five-year-old twins were found dead in their bunk beds after their mother jumped to her death from a bridge in Florida in an apparent murder-suicide, cops said.
The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call around 8:45 a.m. on Friday from a motorist who reported a woman had pulled over her silver car on S.R 417 bridge, slid out of the car’s passenger side window and jumped into Lake Jesup, Sheriff Dennis M. Lemma told reporters.
When deputies arrived, they spotted the woman in the water. They enlisted two fishermen, one of whom was a retired Seminole County Firefighter, to help recover her body.
The woman, identified as 31-year-old Catorreia Hutto, of Sanford, was pronounced dead at the scene, the sheriff’s office said.
The incident prompted a wellness check at her home after authorities learned she was the mother of 5-year-old twins.
Inside the home, police found the little boy and girl — Ahmad and Ava Jackson — dead in their beds. Both children had special needs, according to police.
A gun was found in the bedroom, but the children did not have any gunshot wounds or have any signs of blunt force trauma on their bodies, Lemma said.
A cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner’s office.
“If (the deputies) did not check the vital signs, they would not know that they had been deceased,” the sheriff said.
Hutto had no criminal history and there were no calls to her current home — which was a Habitat for Humanity project completed about a year ago. The home had little food or furniture inside, according to Lemma.
She worked at a temp agency, however, it’s not clear if she was struggling financially, the sheriff said. Hutto had been at work as recently as a few days ago.
The twins last attended school on Oct. 13, Lemma said.
Hutto had tried to contact her mother, who lives in Perry but was in Orlando for a medical procedure, on Thursday night.
Her mother told police she missed the call and assumed that one of the twins was playing with the phone, as Hutto did not leave a message.
Investigators believe the father of the children lives in South Florida.
