Police Searching For Suspect In Attack That Killed 3

Thursday, August 2nd 2007, 7:27 am

By: News On 6

POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. (AP) _ Authorities were searching for a suspect Thursday in an attack that left a Kenyan immigrant and her two daughters dead and two young boys injured in a quiet suburban neighborhood near Atlanta.

Police released few details except to say they don't believe the deaths involved murder-suicide.

The two young survivors, one described as the woman's 8-year-old son, were found unconscious in the home shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday, Powder Springs Detective Kelly Gobely said.

Police roadblocks and yellow crime-scene tape surrounded the family's two-story home on a cul de sac called Country Cove Way. The middle class neighborhood, with broad, neatly manicured lawns, has always been a quiet one where police calls were rare, authorities said.

Gobely said one of the boys was transported by helicopter and the other by ground transportation to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.

Hospital spokesman Jason Rollins said Thursday that Jeremy Kuria, 8, remained in critical condition. The hospital would not confirm whether the second boy was there because authorities had not released his name.

Gobely said there was no word yet on whether the boys had been able to communicate with police investigators. A relative found the bodies and called for an ambulance, she said.

Property records show that Jane Kuria, 47, lived at the address.

Gobley said that the mother found dead in the home was a widow and that one of her daughters was an adult. All the residents of the home were accounted for, she said.

The other victim was a high school sophomore, said neighbor Jermaine Goddard, 16. He said he was shocked by the crime as he showed reporters photographs of the teenager with the school's pep squad. He said he saw her every morning escorting her younger brother to the bus stop.

``It takes a good sister to do something like that,'' Goddard said. ``She was just a nice kid.''

Neighbors said the woman who lived in the home was a nurse who had moved to the neighborhood about two years ago.

Goddard and other neighbors said the family originally was from Kenya, and Gobely said investigators have reached out to members of the area's Kenyan community as they search for clues in the killings.