Police investigate murder-suicide after four family members found stabbed to death in Woodbridge

Four family members in Woodbridge were found dead from stab wounds in their home Saturday morning in what police say was a murder-suicide.

The Prince William County Police Department said that they went to the home in the 3400 block of Vale Court just after 8 a.m. after a stabbing was reported. Officers found two adult women, an adult man and the small child dead, each having sustained stab wounds. 

The dead child was 2 years old; the dead man was in his 40s, one of the dead women was in her 70s and the other was in her 30s and is believed to have been the mother of the child, according to WTOP-FM.

One of the adult women has been identified as the presumed suspect, police said on social media. The department did not identify any of the deceased, all of whom are being sent to the local medical examiner.

The stabbings were first reported by an elderly man, whom police have not named, who lives in the basement of the house.

Prince William County Police Col. Peter Newsham, the chief of the department, told WTOP-FM that the elderly man, believed to be the grandfather of the dead child, is cooperating in the investigation. 

“Compare it to the worst possible nightmare you’ve ever had. We don’t know the exact cause or the motive in this case, but just to see a family destroyed like this is horrific,” Col. Newsham told WTOP-FM.