Authorities identify 3 found dead in Winfield homicide-suicide
The three people found dead in their Winfield home Monday had each sustained multiple sharp force injuries, authorities said Tuesday night.
More than 36 hours after finding the bodies, the DuPage County coroner's office, along with Winfield police and the DuPage state's attorney's office, issued a statement confirming the three people who died were Nancy Clinkenbeard, 77; Clyde Clinkenbeard, 76; and Karl Clinkenbeard, 50.
Authorities are investigating their deaths as a homicide-suicide, police said.
Neighbors on Monday said the Clinkenbeards were married and Karl was their adult son. They knew Clyde Clinkenbeard as Tom Clinkenbeard.
Winfield police and the coroner's office continue to investigate how the family died.
The brief news releases issued Tuesday after 6 p.m. did not explicitly identify the injuries the family sustained as the cause of death. Police did not immediately return a message seeking further details.
Katie Earls, the Clinkenbeards' next-door neighbor, said her husband went to check on the couple Monday morning because one of the their two dogs was waiting unattended outside the ranch home on Jefferson Street just south of Manchester Road.
"I'm like, something's going on here, so I started banging on the door, ringing the doorbell," she said. "All the lights were on in the house. I didn't see anything."
She said her husband, Harry, looked in the kitchen window and, when he saw the father and adult son lying on the floor, had his wife immediately call 911.
Police said officers arrived about 6 a.m., forced their way inside, and found two of the victims together and another in a separate room. Police Chief David Schar has not discussed any details about the scene inside the home.
Earls said the wife was a retired reading specialist in Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200, and the husband was a maintenance employee for more than 30 years in the same district.
• Daily Herald staff writer Doug T. Graham contributed to this report