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Autopsy: Mom strangled kids before leaping to her death from bridge

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Autopsy results released Monday reveal two children who authorities say were killed by their mother before she leapt to her death from a North Carolina interstate bridge likely died by strangulation, reports CBS affiliate WBTV.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department responded in January after the woman dropped onto the asphalt onto Interstate 485. Officers say 34-year-old Christina Elizabeth Treadway was dead at the scene.

Police say they went to the woman's home and inside found two children suffering from fatal wounds. Treadway's 3-year-old-daughter Iliyah Miller and 7-year-old son Isaiah Miller died at a hospital. No one else was inside the home.

The autopsy released Monday states the cause of death for the two children was "asphyxia due to probable strangulation," WBTV reports.

Family and friends described Treadway to the station as a good mother. They said Treadway had been depressed, but they never saw any indication she was intending to harm her children or herself.

"Her children were her life. They were her life," said her mother Patricia Treadway. "We not only lost our daughter, but our grandbabies, too, and what they could have been."

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