Five people were found dead in an automobile repair garage in Pudong New Area Saturday, in what police suspect was a case of carbon monoxide poisoning, local media reported Saturday.
Police found no sign of either a break-in or a struggle at the garage, which is located on Huicheng Road. They found all five people unharmed in sleeping positions, according to a report on the news website Xinmin.cn.
Among the dead was the couple who ran the garage and their 5-year-old daughter, the report said. The other two were apprentice workers, a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old.
The couple, from Jiangxi Province, opened the garage two years ago.
The bodies were discovered by a friend of the wife's father. The father hadn't been able to reach his daughter since Friday, so he asked a friend to pay the garage a visit, the report said.
Police found the bodies of the wife, the daughter and the two workers in two bedrooms on the garage's second floor. The husband was found dead in a car on the first floor.
The car's battery was dead and its ignition was on when police found it.
Police speculated that the husband might have started the vehicle to use its heater to warm up the garage, according to a report on news website Eastday.com.
In the closed building, a build-up of carbon monoxide from the vehicle's exhaust might have asphyxiated the occupants, according to a post on a police microblog Saturday.
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