The bodies of two young girls and their father, a Clarksville man wanted in Montgomery County on rape charges, were found in a car near Oak Ridge yesterday in what investigators are calling a murder-suicide.
Richard Alfonso Howard, 32, was approached earlier yesterday morning in his car by a Tennessee Valley Authority police officer patrolling a parking lot at TVA's Bull Run fossil plant, about 15 miles west of Knoxville in East Tennessee, said Jim Carver, director of TVA police.
The officer asked Howard why he was there, and he responded that he had run out of gas and was waiting for someone to bring him gas or money to buy it, Carver said.
The officer initially did not notice the girls, whose bodies were covered in the back of the vehicle, Carver said.
After the officer ran a check on Howard's license plate numbers, he discovered the outstanding rape warrants. When he returned to Howard's Ford Crown Victoria, he found the father slumped over the steering wheel, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.
When the car was searched, police discovered the bodies of Howard's daughters — Brionna, 3, and Markayla, 2 —along with a suicide note in which he admitted to killing them, authorities said.
Investigators declined to say when or how the toddlers were killed.
Howard had two outstanding rape warrants involving a 15-year-old girl at a Clarksville motel last summer. The teen told Clarksville police in August that Howard took her to the Holiday Drive motel on July 4 and forced her to have sex with him against her will, according to a report by Clarksville police Detective Shane Dortch.
Richard Alfonso Howard, 32, was approached earlier yesterday morning in his car by a Tennessee Valley Authority police officer patrolling a parking lot at TVA's Bull Run fossil plant, about 15 miles west of Knoxville in East Tennessee, said Jim Carver, director of TVA police.
The officer asked Howard why he was there, and he responded that he had run out of gas and was waiting for someone to bring him gas or money to buy it, Carver said.
The officer initially did not notice the girls, whose bodies were covered in the back of the vehicle, Carver said.
After the officer ran a check on Howard's license plate numbers, he discovered the outstanding rape warrants. When he returned to Howard's Ford Crown Victoria, he found the father slumped over the steering wheel, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.
When the car was searched, police discovered the bodies of Howard's daughters — Brionna, 3, and Markayla, 2 —along with a suicide note in which he admitted to killing them, authorities said.
Investigators declined to say when or how the toddlers were killed.
Howard had two outstanding rape warrants involving a 15-year-old girl at a Clarksville motel last summer. The teen told Clarksville police in August that Howard took her to the Holiday Drive motel on July 4 and forced her to have sex with him against her will, according to a report by Clarksville police Detective Shane Dortch.