Local families are looking for answers after two young sisters originally from Pleasantville were found dead last week in the Arizona home they shared with their mother.
Aleyah and Royal McIntyre, ages 9 and 4, were found dead on a bed, the cause of death not immediately apparent, Phoenix Police Sgt. Andy Williams said.
Their mother, whose name has not been released, was found critically injured with what appeared to be self-inflicted wounds, including at least one large laceration, according to the report.
The cause and manner of the girls' deaths remain under investigation. It is believed their mother killed them, but no charges have been filed.
"I came home to a devastating situation where my daughters were deceased and their mother critically injured," Michael Coleman said in a GoFundMe page he started. "At this point, there are still more questions than answers. I know you all want to know the story as do I."
But Coleman isn't the only grieving father.
While 4-year-old Royal is his daughter, Aleyah's father in Cumberland County says he has been fighting to bring her home.
Kevin Maddox and his daughter's mother had been raising Aleyah together in Pleasantville, he says.
After they broke up, a custody battle followed.
Maddox says he had primary custody but let Aleyah's mother take her for spring break in March 2020.
He claims the woman then disappeared with his daughter. Aleyah and her sister wound up in Arizona with their mother and Royal's father.
"I wanted to make my daughters aware of the spiritual nature that I believe in and I felt Arizona had to offer being it's a very spiritual state," Coleman wrote on GoFundMe.
Maddox said Aleyah's mother had no right to take her there. He then launched a fight through the system and between two states.
"Nobody wanted to help me, nobody wanted to listen," he told Dad Talk Today. "Everybody failed me and my daughter."
Last Monday, Maddox finally got some good news: a court ruling that would bring Aleyah back to him in Millville.
Two days later, Aleyah and her sister were found dead. Maddox said he wouldn't find out that devastating news for two more days.
His focus now is to be able to lay his daughter to rest. His sister has set up a GoFundMe page to help with that.
"I feel for Mike, his daughter's gone too," Maddox said of Coleman. "But he had a chance to say something too."
The girls also leave behind their mother's family, which includes their grandmother, uncle and an older brother and sister.
"I just want to say sleep in peace to my two beautiful angels," Gerald McIntyre said of his nieces. "Uncle G loves you."
