Azalea Rivas, 37, is found dead alongside daughter, 14, and family dog after ‘murder-suicide’ at mom’s Brooklyn apartment
- Police said the horrific death of a mom, her daughter and their dog could be a murder-suicide
- The three bodies were found in the mom’s Brooklyn apartment
- A neighbor heard what he described as someone being murdered on Friday and the family were found dead on Monday
Police suspect a murder-suicide was the cause of death for a mom, her 14-year-old daughter and their pet dog who were all found dead in their Brooklyn apartment.
Azalea Rivas, 37, was found dead alongside her 14-year-old daughter and the family dog on Monday at 4:30 pm by Rivas’s boyfriend, according to the New York Post.
The worried boyfriend broke down the door to discover a gruesome scene and called the police, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Police are now calling the disturbing incident a murder-suicide after previously claiming they were investigating the scene as part of a brutal domestic dispute.
It is unclear which of the two victims they think may be the killer.
Rivas was found with a gory slash wound on her face as she lay dead on her back in the living room.
A mother was found dead alongside her 14-year-old daughter and their pet dog in a Brooklyn apartment on Monday
Police are now saying the horrific deaths could be the result of a murder-suicide
A neighbor had called the Police on Friday after hearing an alarming noise coming from upstairs but the police left after knocking a few times and receiving no response
Her teenage daughter was found lying face down with trauma to her head.
Their pet dog was discovered next to them with a bag over its head.
Sources said that Rivas’s boyfriend was questioned by the police but isn’t thought to be a suspect.
Officers had been called to the apartment on New York Avenue multiple times over the past several weeks.
A downstairs neighbor of the mother and daughter called the Police on Friday after hearing an alarming noise coming from upstairs.
The neighbor Steve Schor said: ‘I mean, when I call 911 I literally said it sounds like someone’s being killed’.
Schor said: ‘I’ve never heard anyone get killed before except in the movies. But I can only imagine that’s what it would sound like.’
The police who showed up to the apartment on Friday left after nobody answered the door.
The mother was identified as 37-year-old Azalea Rivas. She was found with a brutal slash wound on her face.
Azalea’s teenage daughter was found dead with trauma to her head and their pet dog was discovered with a bag over its head
According to a report from The Daily News, a downstairs neighbor was startled awake around 7:20am Friday to the sounds of blood-curdling screams and a dog whimpering.
‘We got woken up by loud banging and screaming,’ Steve Schor, 38, told the paper Monday, as police remained stationed outside the building near Avenue D in East Flatbush.
‘We called 911 and the police came. When they went upstairs, no one answered. All they heard was loud music,’ he added, while revealing the woman and girl had only been living at the apartment building for a few weeks.
‘After the banging, we heard the dog crying and whimpering and then it just stopped,’ Schor said, before suggesting that another person was responsible for the slayings.
‘What I heard was pretty grotesque,’ Schor added. ‘Obviously, we heard people being murdered.
The scene they discovered on Monday was described as particularly gruesome and bloody by a police source.
Police are waiting for final autopsy results, but they are considering the possibility that this grim incident was a murder-suicide.