A Parkville family was found dead inside their home Friday night after police received a call from the wife's employer after she did not show up for work.
Officers found Gilbert Mendoza, 50; his wife, Vedrana Mendoza, 40; and their 15-year-old daughter, Molly Mendoza, dead inside their home in the 1800 block of Cromwood Road, Baltimore County police said Friday evening.
They went to the home after Vedrana Mendoza did not show up for work and her employer asked police to check on her.
Autopsies are pending, according to police, who said the homicide unit is investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide. Police said on the scene they found a knife and gun, which was registered to someone in the home.
Online court records show the couple were in the process of foreclosure proceedings. Family members could not be reached for comment.
"I can't even begin to imagine which one of them would've done something like that to the others," said neighbor Terri Miley.
"They were very private people," she said, but Miley had known them since she moved in next door in 2002. "They worked hard. The husband was always willing to help anybody."
She said Gilbert Mendoza, a waiter, worked last summer to help her fix her vehicle and they would often share tools. She would often see him outside playing basketball with his daughter or out swimming together in their pool. She said Vedrana Mendoza and her daughter were very close, and that both worked at Oak Crest Village senior living home.
Molly Mendoza, she said, was a student at Loch Raven High School. She said the teen was an exceptional sketch artist, and that her father was most proud of a James Dean sketch she had drawn.
Miley said she never saw anything from the family that indicated they had any problems.
"I've been having a hard time wrapping my head around it," she said.
Baltimore Sun reporter Meredith Cohn contributed to this article.
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