Montgomery County couple and daughter found dead in ‘family tragedy,’ DA says
Robert McIntyre, his wife, Sheila Dolan, and their daughter Julia McIntyre were found dead late Monday.
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Investigators in Montgomery County found a couple and their adult daughter dead inside a home in Springfield Township late Monday, officials said Wednesday.
The bodies of Robert McIntyre and his wife, Sheila Dolan, both 71, were discovered by police conducting a wellness check at their home on Erdenheim Road, according to District Attorney Kevin R. Steele. Also in the home was the body of their 27-year-old daughter, Julia McIntyre, who had a wound that appeared self-inflicted, he said.
Steele called the incident a “family tragedy,” and declined to release further information.
A law enforcement source said it appeared that the deaths were the result of murder-suicide and no firearms were involved. The wellness check was requested by a relative who had not heard from the couple, the source said.
The family lived on a quiet street a few turns off Bethlehem Pike.
Neighbors reacted with shock and sadness. Some said they had seen officers at the home late Monday, others learned of the deaths only when Steele issued his statement.
Robert McIntyre, some said, was a fixture on the block, often seen walking his two small dogs.
One neighbor, who asked that her name not be published for privacy reasons, said she had been Julia McIntyre’s classmate at Springfield Township High School. She described her as a nature lover with “a good soul.”
“There are just no words for this,” the neighbor said.
School officials said Julia McIntyre graduated from the high school in 2011, and returned two years later to help coach its softball team. She held that position until 2015.
The owners of a landscaping business in Roxborough used a Facebook post Wednesday to remember Julia McIntyre, who they said worked for them while she attended college.
“She was super-nice and a great worker, and we got to know her parents as well by doing work for them," the post said, "and we are shocked and brokenhearted to hear that things turned out so horrifically for all three of them.”