DULUT – Five people were found dead at Duluth’s home on Wednesday after a mental health crisis turned into a tragedy, authorities said.
Duluth police chief Mike Tusken said police had received a request to check on someone in nearby Hermantown. This led them to Duluth’s home, where authorities found the bodies in the early afternoon.
Tusken called it an “unimaginable tragedy” at a news conference Wednesday night. Police said all five people were related to each other. Their names are kept until the relatives are notified.
The incident began earlier Wednesday when the Hermantown Police Department responded to a social assistance call around 11:18 a.m., but was unable to contact the person in question. Authorities in Hermantown, just northwest of Duluth, contacted Duluth police with information that led to a search of a house on Block 700 on E. 12th Street in the city’s East Hillside district.
Based on information that a person there has access to weapons, the police in Duluth called officers from the high police department and the sheriff of St. Louis County.
“Due to the open intelligence, many law enforcement agencies and public safety agencies have responded to the scene,” according to a press release from the Duluth Police Department. “The house to which the agencies responded was known to the subject.”
Authorities conducted what Duluth police called a “methodical search of the premises.” Police eventually managed to enter the home, where they found five bodies and a dead dog. Duluth police said they were continuing to investigate the incident.
The home is in a nearby neighborhood where many residents have lived for decades. One of the girls in the family had sold cookies to the scout girls to many of the neighbors, and the family liked them very much.
“They were really nice people – very friendly,” said Jody Ethan, who lives across the street. The mother “did a lot of arts and crafts with the children; she always took them in places. Very practical, very easy to talk to. It’s heartbreaking.”
The father worked in an Alaska oil field, Ethan said, and the mother was a social worker but cared for her children.
Police remained at the scene Wednesday night, a minibus at the crime scene parked in front of a green house with white shutters and a purple front door. Technicians came and went carrying large boxes of equipment.
Two Doors Down Rick Adamski described the residents, a family of four, as “nice people.”
Adamski said he and a handful of neighbors have lived in the block, near Myers-Wilkins Elementary School, for decades. His daughter moved across the street a few years ago.
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