Parents, 2 children and 3 dogs found shot to death in suburban Chicago home as police search for killer

A couple, their two children and three dogs were found fatally shot Sunday in a home in a Chicago suburb. Police are not investigating the incident as a murder-suicide and are searching for the killer, CBS Chicago reports.

The bodies were found around 8:40 p.m. in Romeoville by officers sent to the home by concerned relatives of the victims to conduct a health check, Romeoville Deputy Police Chief Chris Burne told reporters Monday.

The victims were believed to have been shot sometime between Saturday evening and early Sunday, Burne said. The deaths are being investigated as murder, he added.

The adults were identified as Alberto Rolon and Zoraida Bartolomei. The names and ages of their children were not immediately released.

“A family member did not show up for work at 6 a.m. Sunday and did not answer phone calls throughout the day,” Burne said. “Family members became worried.”

While they were at the home, crime scene technicians were going in and out of the house to take photos, and several brown and pink bags were removed from the house, CBS Chicago reported.

A computer screen and part of a window were taken from the scene, the station reported. Police have not released any details about a possible suspect.

Neighbors told CBS Chicago the victims moved in only a few months ago. They were also a mystery to their neighbors – who said they kept to themselves and were only briefly seen outside.

“It’s pretty destabilizing for the bloc,” Carol Love said.

Love lives next door. She was home during the shooting, but says she — like many people in the neighborhood — didn’t hear anything at all, despite living only a few feet away.

“None of the neighbors really knew and of course the police couldn’t tell us at that time,” Love said.

“We hear the gunshots from the shooting range, three kilometers away. We can hear them all the time,” said another neighbor. “But not that, no.”

Neighbor Lynn Phillips, who did not want her face shown, said she has lived in the neighborhood for nearly two decades.

She said she has never seen police invade her neighborhood like she saw Sunday night.

“It’s devastating to me, absolutely devastating that a young family was murdered,” Phillips said.

Romeoville is about 30 miles southwest of Chicago.