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Mother, 2 Young Children Found Dead In Parked Car

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) -- Hagerstown Police said they were puzzled Tuesday by the deaths of a woman from Guyana and her two daughters, ages 18 months and six months, whose bodies were found in a closed car in a middle school parking lot on a sweltering afternoon.

"At this point, we have no indication of what the cause of death would be," Capt. Paul Kifer said.

Investigators were awaiting autopsy results from the state medical examiner's office in Baltimore, he said. Police were withholding the names of the deceased pending notification of relatives, possibly in South America, Kifer said.

He said an employee of Western Heights Middle School, leaving on the last day for teachers before summer break, spotted the bodies late Monday afternoon. Kifer said the car was in park with the ignition off and windows up despite outside temperatures that had peaked near 90 degrees.

The bodies were clothed, he said. The 32-year-old woman was in the front seat and the children in the back.

Investigators were reviewing surveillance video to determine when the car arrived, he said. Neither the woman nor the children had any known connection to the school in the city's West End, at least three miles from their rented home in the East End, Kifer said.

Classes for students ended for the summer last week, he said.

The children's father lives in Hagerstown but didn't live with the mother and was never married to her, Kifer said.

He said the woman had recently moved from West Virginia to Hagerstown, about 70 miles west of Baltimore.

(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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