Ohio Murder-Suicide: Grandmother behind deaths of five people, police say

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: Daily Blotter

A home in Toledo, Ohio, where three children, their uncle and their grandmother were found dead Monday in what appears to be a murder-suicide.

/ AP Photo/Rick Osentoski

(CBS/AP) TOLEDO, Ohio - A murder-suicide that left three children dead was orchestrated by their grandmother and uncle, whose bodies were found along with the youngsters in the garage of an Ohio home, police said Tuesday.

They say letters found at the scene revealed that the tragic incident occurred amid a disagreement over who should care for the children.

Firefighters on Monday used a sledgehammer to force open a barricaded door to the garage. This is where a truck was running with hoses leading from the exhaust in to the car that contained the bodies, police said.

The family members were identified as 54-year-old Sandy Ford, her 32-year-old son, Andy Ford, and her grandchildren, 10-year-old Paige Hayes, 6-year-old Logan Hayes and 5-year-old Madalyn Hayes.

Investigators said the relatives may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Two dogs and a cat also were found dead.

Until last week, the children had lived with Sandy Ford and her husband Randy at the house in a residential neighborhood close to the Michigan state line. Andy Ford also lived at the home.

Randy Ford called police Monday to say that he returned home and found suspicious notes in the house from his wife, son and grandkids. He said he wasn't able to enter the garage.

The barricaded door and the letters made it "very evident that it was a murder-suicide situation," Toledo police Sgt. Joe Heffernan said Tuesday. He wouldn't offer details about what was in the notes.

Police said Sandy Ford had been distressed about a change in who was to care for her grandchildren.

Children's services representatives and a family friend said the children's mother, Mandy Hayes, had asked their grandmother to care for them about three years ago but had recently decided they should return home.

The children moved back into their parents' home last week, upsetting Hayes' mother, said the friend, Cammie Turner.

"Mandy wasn't taking the kids away from her entirely," Turner said. "She wanted them home. It wasn't like she was taking them and grandma could never see them again."

While the children were living with their grandmother, Hayes and her husband saw them often and went on outings to parks and the zoo, Turner said.

Turner said she never saw any indication of a strained relationship between Hayes and her mother, and they never went to court over the issue of custody.

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November 13, 2012 - Five people dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in apparent murder-suicide, Ohio police say

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by Sydonia56 November 13, 2012 10:11 PM EST: How terribly sad that someone would resort to such a selfish act, how controlling was this woman to deny those children their mother and to get her son to help her kill them and himself. I pray those children were drugged or sedated when she put them in that car. Can you imagine the horror they felt if they weren't.; Reply to this comment


by FormerUSMCSergeant November 13, 2012 6:19 PM EST: One selfish broad. Killed her grandkids rather than give them back to their mother.; Reply to this comment


by SusanMassachusetts November 13, 2012 5:51 PM EST: Grandparents; Randy and Sandy, had a son they named Andy and a daughter they named Mandy. Maybe a little less time on the rhyming of names and more time on parenting would have been well served.

Obviously one dysfunctional family at best.; Reply to this comment

by lokibear2 November 13, 2012 3:55 PM EST

OMG this poor man lost a wife, a son and 3 grandchildren - plus the fact that his wife & son killed 3 innocent babies. How could you possibly live with the type of pain this causes.

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by hypnotoad72 November 13, 2012 6:40 PM EST: The only thing worse is the type of pain that would lead somebody to do such heinous things to begin with, assuming it wasn't a form of psychosis where the person doing the crime was psychotic and incapable of emotion...