Bucks County Mom, Daughter Charged With Killing 5 Family Members Due In Court
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (CBS/AP) - A mother and her adult daughter charged with killing five of their close family members, including three children, at a Bucks County apartment are due in court Tuesday to enter pleas. Shana Decree, 46, and her daughter Dominique Decree, 20, each face five counts of homicide and one of conspiracy.
The pair are due in Common Pleas Court in Doylestown.
Police have not yet given a motive for the murders. When the incident happened last year, a family member told Eyewitness News the two women were "into some type of cult."
Damon Decree Sr. said his estranged wife and his daughter talked previously about "demons being all around them."
The family members' bodies were found in their trashed apartment in Morrisville a year ago, according to authorities.
The victims were Shana's children, Naa'Irah Smith, 25, and Damon Decree Jr., 13, both of Morrisville; Shana Decree's sister Jamilla Campbell, of Trenton, New Jersey; and Campbell's 9-year-old twin daughters, Imani and Erika Allen.
Smith, Damon Decree Jr. and the twins had been suffocated, the Bucks County coroner's office said in March. Campbell had been strangled, according to the coroner.
Authorities discovered the scene after a child welfare officer arrived for an unannounced visit and was let into the building by someone who works there, according to court papers.
Police say they found Shana and Dominique Decree "disoriented" inside the apartment, where furniture had been turned over, drywall was cracked and glass lay around. Police initially said they found four bodies, but they discovered a fifth underneath another that was next to a bed.
The apartment is in a three-story, red brick complex in Morrisville, which sits on the Delaware River northeast of Philadelphia and across from Trenton.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
