iStock/Thinkstock(McKEESPORT, Pa.) — A McKeesport, Pennsylvania, couple was found dead in their home Monday evening after their 7-year-old daughter told a school employee that she was unable to wake them up that morning, according to the Allegheny County Police Department.
The girl told a school bus monitor that she did not want to go home because her parents “had not moved” for more than two days and had been “changing colors,” according to Lt. Andrew Schurman with the Allegheny County Police Department.
The school bus monitor alerted McKeesport Area School District officials, who then requested county police to perform a welfare check on the home, Schurman told ABC News Wednesday.
Officers responded to the residence around 5 p.m. that day and found the young girl’s parents dead, along with “evidence of paraphernalia and drug use in the home,” according to Schurman.
The couple were parents to four children: a 9-month-old, 3-year-old, 5-year-old and the 7-year-old girl who alerted the school employee. Three of the children were home at the time their parents were discovered by police, Schurman said.
All four children were taken to a local hospital for evaluation before being placed with Allegheny County’s Office of Children, Youth and Families, Schurman said.
The Allegheny County Department of Human Services — which operates the county’s Office of Children, Youth and Families — is not permitted “to discuss specific details about any child or family who may be receiving child welfare services,” its public relations manager, Mark Bertolet, told ABC News.
The deceased couple has been identified as 26-year-old Christopher Dilly and 25-year-old Jessica Lally by the county’s medical examiner’s office, according to Amie Downs, director of communications for Allegheny County.
Downs said the couple’s “cause and manner of death are both pending examination and toxicology.” She added that Dilly was incorrectly identified as a 35-year-old male in the county’s original news release on Monday.
The McKeesport Area School District told ABC News in a statement that it “took immediate action” after being “notified of the concerns shared by one of our students on their route home.”
“We alerted all appropriate officials and ensured the students’ safety,” the school district added. “Each school in our district offers counseling to any student who needs it. We will be available for the family affected by this tragedy.”
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