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A Minnesota man who killed an elderly relative went on to fatally stab his wife and their 7-year-old daughter Wednesday at a Minneapolis-area home daycare where other children were present, police said.
The man fatally shot himself after the stabbing deaths of his family members at the home daycare in Hopkins, Minnesota, around 9 a.m., Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnston said.
Hours later, in nearby Burnsville, Minnesota, which is 12 miles southeast of Hopkins, police were called on a report of a stabbing and found a 78-year-old woman, who was described as a close relative of the suspect, dead, police said.
\u201cOur entire community is grieving the loss, unnecessarily, due to domestic violence,\u201d Johnston said.
Six other children were at the home daycare, but were not injured and were safely evacuated, Johnston said. It was not clear if they witnessed the violence, the chief said.
The suspect is a 41-year-old man, and the woman killed at the Hopkins home daycare was also 41, police said.
None of the victims have been publicly identified, and police said that family notifications were pending. The name of the suspect was also not released.
The mother and her daughter were found dead in a basement at the daycare, the chief said, and the suspect was found in an upper floor of the residence.
The six other children were in the basement, which is where the daycare\u2019s entrance is, the chief said.
A father dropping off his child at the daycare saw an altercation and called police, Johnston said.
\u201cI just don\u2019t know the specific locations of every child inside the residence or what they actually saw or not,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cWe can make assumptions on that.\u201d
\u201cThis is a tragic day and a horrific scene for little children to witness \u2014 if they did witness this,\u201d he said.
The woman killed in Burnsville was found after a family member called police around 12:25 p.m. Wednesday and reported a stabbing, Burnsville Police Chief Matt Smith said.
Investigators believe the suspect had recently lived there, he said. The killings in both towns, which are believed to be connected, are under investigation, police said.
Police in both towns said they were not aware of any prior police calls to either home in Hopkins or Burnsville, or to the daycare.
Hopkins and Burnsville are small towns in the Minneapolis metropolitan area and are southwest and south of the city.
Hopkins Mayor Patrick Hanlon called his city a close-knit community where everyone knows each other.
\u201cThis city has shed a lot of tears today over this incident, over this immense loss,\u201d Hanlon said.
I\u2019m a reporter on NBC News\u2019 breaking news team, covering crime, extreme weather, pop culture and more. I recently covered Hurricane Milton, which devastated the Tampa, Florida, metropolitan area, and the student-led protests at Columbia University.
Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.
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