Four members of a family were found dead in an apartment in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. Police had responded to a screaming report roughly five hours before the tragedy but withdrew after failing to locate the source.
According to police, fire department authorities and Yonhap, police received a 112 emergency call at around 7:39 a.m. Friday reporting screams from an apartment in Yonghyeon-dong, Uijeongbu.
The caller, a nearby resident, said it sounded like a family dispute and that the screaming had been loud enough to wake them from sleep, though it had since gone quiet. The caller could not pinpoint the exact unit, saying it appeared to be on the same floor of an adjacent building.
Two patrol cars from the Uijeongbu Police Station's Geumo district unit arrived at around 7:43 a.m. and 7:46 a.m. Officers canvassed more than 20 units, including the same floor of the neighboring building and the floors above and below.
During the search, officers rang the doorbell of the unit where the family lived but received no response. Unable to identify the source of the reported screams, they withdrew from the scene.
About five hours later, at around 12:55 p.m., a new call reported that a couple in their 40s had fallen from the same apartment complex. The two were taken to a hospital but were pronounced dead.
As police and fire department officials checked the couple's unit, they found two children — aged 12 and 8 — also dead inside.
Police have requested autopsies from the National Forensic Service and are investigating the exact circumstances of the case.
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