Asia-Pacific

3 generations found dead in Manhattan apartment

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-18 08:20

NEW YORK: A man, his son and his grandson were found shot to death in an apartment in an upscale Manhattan neighborhood Thursday, with a female relative wounded and a fourth man, possibly the gunman, found dead in the backyard, police said.

The three dead family members were found in the third-floor apartment, police said. They were investigating whether the fourth victim, found dead from a fall off the fire escape, was the gunman trying to flee the scene.

A 49-year-old woman, who is related to the shooting victims, was hospitalized with a head wound, chief police spokesman Paul Browne said.

Detectives suspect that the shootings were drug-related, he said. Police recovered a semiautomatic handgun in the third-floor apartment in the rear of the walk-up building, and no arrests had been made.

The killings were reported at 1:45 pm at the building on Amsterdam Avenue near West 84th Street, a busy commercial strip in a tree-lined residential neighborhood a few blocks from Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History.

Two of the victims were found dead in a bedroom and one was in the apartment's bathroom, police said.

Darryl Gamble, who owns a women's clothing boutique on the ground floor, said he heard no commotion coming from the apartments.

"I think that most of the tenants have been there for years," Gamble said. He said he had no problems with his neighbors, outside of "the usual, New York noise, a few leaks."

Police had the entrance to the building and part of the block cordoned off. Scores of onlookers crowded the sidewalks, and dozens of police cars lined Amsterdam Avenue.