Investigators work the scene of a shooting Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, in Tabernacle, N.J. The shooting at a home in a secluded wooded area of southern New Jersey left two children dead and a woman and another child wounded, state police said Thursday.TABERNACLE, N.J. - A shooting at a home in a secluded wooded area of southern New Jersey left two children dead and a woman believed to be their mother and the children's brother critically wounded, state police said Thursday.
Officials said they were not prepared Thursday afternoon to say whether the shooting in Tabernacle is considered a murder-suicide, but they did say there is no active search for a shooter. Police did not release the name of the victims, saying they need to reach next of kin first.
State police said they received a call from another relative in the home at about 9:15 a.m. reporting that the mother and children - believe to be middle-school and high-school aged - had been shot.
The woman had a single shot to her head; officials would not say where the children were shot. All were found in the same room, and a handgun believed to have been the only weapon used was found, police said.
The two survivors were taken to Cooper University Hospital in Camden.
Five other people live in the home, but authorities say none reported hearing any shooting. The reason for that was another issue that officials said they couldn't explain yet.
"It's going to be a long time before we know exactly what happened," state police Detective Geoff Noble said.
Authorities said all the other residents of the home had been accounted for.
State police had a section of the road closed Thursday evening as investigators continued searching the house and property. They were seen looking through three cars in the driveway.
Just before 5 p.m., authorities brought out the bodies of the two children.
Duke German, 50, of Tabernacle, said his son goes to school with one of the boys who lives at the house and said the boy wasn't on the school bus Thursday morning.
The Burlington County community is located in the sparsely populated New Jersey Pinelands, about 30 miles east of Philadelphia.
Neighbors said they did not know the residents of the house and did not hear any commotion Thursday morning until troopers arrived and helicopters began hovering overhead.
"It's very quiet, peaceful," said Mike Watson, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years. "You can hear a pin drop."