MENDOCINO CO., 10/10/26 — Initial evidence indicates a 44-year-old Ukiah man killed his two children, a 14-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, and then himself Friday morning at a home on Old River Road near Ukiah, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said Saturday.
“Initial evidence and interviews indicate the adult male killed the two children and then committed suicide at the residence,” Capt. Quincy Cromer wrote in a release.
The Sheriff’s Office hasn’t released any names. The children’s names are being withheld because of their age. The father’s name will come out after his legal next of kin is found and notified, Cromer wrote.
The call came in about 10:19 a.m. Friday, a 911 call transferred from the California Highway Patrol about an unknown emergency at a home in the 6800 block of Old River Road. The caller had found two children there who needed medical help.
People at the property put the children in their vehicle and drove north on Old River Road to meet emergency medical crews. They met them near the Mendocino County Office of Education, just south of Talmage Road.
The children were unresponsive and had no pulse, according to the release. Medics and other first responders did CPR and other advanced lifesaving work on both children. After efforts failed, the brother and sister were declared dead.
Law enforcement from around the county, along with medics and firefighters, had been sent to Old River Road. Officers who went to the house found the children’s father there, dead.
Sheriff’s detectives, already at both scenes, took over the case. They got a search warrant for the house, processed it for evidence and interviewed family members, witnesses and others, the release says.
Cromer wrote that the Sheriff’s Office isn’t releasing a possible motive. Investigators have contacted everyone they believe was involved, Cromer wrote, and “determined there are no outstanding suspects and no continuing threat to the community.”
Sheriff’s Office chaplains went to help family members and first responders.
Autopsies on all three are being scheduled. The official cause and manner of death hasn’t been determined for any of them.
Anyone with information can call the Sheriff’s Office at 707-463-4086, option 1, or leave an anonymous tip at 707-234-2100.
Help is available for anyone struggling: call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or call the Mendocino County crisis line, open 24 hours a day, at 1-855-838-0404.