A 25-year-old man has confessed to killing his 6-year-old sister and his two young cousins while he was supposed to be baby-sitting the little girls at a family home in Maryland, authorities say.
CNN reports that the man in question, Antonio Williams, is facing charges of first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of his sister, 6-year-old Nadira Withers, and his two second-cousins, 9-year-old Ariana Decree and 6-year-old Ajaya Decree, who were both visiting Maryland from New Jersey.
All of the girls were found in a single bed with stab wounds to their upper bodies, the Prince George’s County, Md., Police Department revealed. Williams’ mother, who discovered the children, had left her son to take care of the girls while she worked an overnight shift as a nurse. Police say they are still trying to determine a motive for the attack. Williams made no attempt to flee the scene of the crime and later confessed to what he had done, police said.
“Incidents like these are not easy to handle,” Assistant Prince George’s County Police Chief Hector Velez told the Washington Post. “As parents, aunts, uncles and siblings of young children, it hurts us as well. Our initial thought is to want to hug our children, but we know we have to put those feelings aside and remain steadfast in finding who the killer is and telling the story that these three children cannot tell.”
Another child who was in the home at the time, identified as Williams’ 2-year-old sister by the Post, was found unharmed.
Read more at CNN and the Washington Post.