SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Police are investigating the possibility that a mother killed her two children before dying in a fire she set in the bedroom of the family's southwest Missouri home.
Springfield police Lt. Tad Peters said Thursday that it appears 4-year-old Noah Adams and 2-year-old Lilly Adams had been stabbed and strangled. He says fire officials responding to Saturday's fire were suspicious and the case quickly became a homicide investigation.
Preliminary autopsy results indicate the children died from injuries unrelated to the fire. An autopsy performed on their mother, 27-year-old Jassez Sager, found she had fire injuries that likely contributed to her death. The final determination of cause of death hasn't yet been made.
No other suspects are being sought. Peters said Sager was a single mother who recently moved to Springfield.
