3 generations found dead in NYC apartment, woman hurt; 4th body found in backyard

3 generations found dead in Manhattan apartment

NEW YORK — Police say someone shot a man, son and grandson to death in their New York City apartment, then fell to his death while trying to flee.

Authorities say a woman who was the daughter-in-law, wife and mother of the victims came home to find the gunman Thursday on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She was also wounded.

Police say 44-year-old Hector Quinones (kee-NOH’-nes) was found dead after falling from the fire escape of the third-floor apartment.

Police found 52-year-old Carlos Rodriguez Sr. and his son, 24-year-old Carlos Rodriguez Jr., dead in a bedroom. Eighty-seven-year-old Fernando Gonzalez was found dead in a bathroom.

Police say 49-year-old Giselle Rodriguez was hospitalized with a head wound.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

NEW YORK (AP) — A man, his son and his grandson were found shot to death in an apartment in an upscale Manhattan neighborhood Thursday, with a female relative wounded and a fourth man, possibly the gunman, found dead in the backyard, police said.

The three dead family members were found in the third-floor apartment, police said. They were investigating whether the fourth victim, found dead from a fall off the fire escape, was the gunman trying to flee the scene.

A 49-year-old woman, who is related to the shooting victims, was hospitalized with a head wound, chief police spokesman Paul Browne said.

Detectives suspect that the shootings were drug-related, he said. Police recovered a semiautomatic handgun in the third-floor apartment in the rear of the walk-up building, and no arrests had been made.

The killings were reported at 1:45 p.m. at the building on Amsterdam Avenue near West 84th Street, a busy commercial strip in a tree-lined residential neighborhood a few blocks from Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History.

Two of the victims were found dead in a bedroom and one was in the apartment’s bathroom, police said.

Darryl Gamble, who owns a women’s clothing boutique on the ground floor, said he heard no commotion coming from the apartments.

“I think that most of the tenants have been there for years,” Gamble said. He said he had no problems with his neighbors, outside of “the usual, New York noise, a few leaks.”

Police had the entrance to the building and part of the block cordoned off. Scores of onlookers crowded the sidewalks, and dozens of police cars lined Amsterdam Avenue.

Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik and Virginia Byrne contributed to this report.