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Victims of suspected Ont. triple homicide and suicide span 3 generations

An elderly woman, her daughter and grandson are among four people dead in what's being investigated as a triple homicide and suicide in a small community in central Ontario.

CBC News has learned from neighbours that the victims are Raija Turunen, Ulla Theoret and Paul Theoret.

Ontario Provincial Police announced Sunday that they believe a man killed the three people before killing himself in Ryerson Township, Ont., about 300 kilometres north of Toronto.

Det.-Insp. Martin Graham said somebody stopped by the home on Friday evening and found "the tragic scene."

He said the three victims were members of the same family, and lived in the house where they were found.

"The fourth deceased in the residence is not related by blood to the three victims of the homicide, but is also a resident of Ryerson Township," Graham said.

He said that firearms were recovered from the scene, but wouldn't say whether any of the deceased appeared to have been shot. Police have not officially released the names of the dead.

'It's just a small community'

The incident happened at a home that lies at the end of a rural road in the isolated community of just under 650 people.

Graham said police won't be commenting on any potential cause of death until a post-mortem is completed, which likely won't be until later in the week.

However, OPP Sgt. Carlo Berardi said earlier that all four bodies showed signs of trauma.

Deputy Reeve Barbara Marlow said she hasn't heard of a tragedy of this scale happening in the township during the 45 years she's lived there.

"It's just a small community, so everybody is quite shocked," she said.

Cathy Still, the mayor of the nearby village of Burk's Falls where Ryerson's population does its socializing, said she too was surprised by the deaths.

"This is really strange. We've only had maybe four incidents in the last 60 years of anything involving shootings or guns, or anything like that."