Little girls strangled by half-brother, authorities say

The 20-year-old man charged with strangling his two young half-sisters and chasing his mother around the house with a claw hammer is being held in an undisclosed location, Gloucester County authorities said today.

Marqueese Lee, who was arrested after police stormed the West Deptford house on Red Bank Avenue Thursday night and caught him with a knife pointed at his stomach, was ordered held on $100,000 bail on a charge of aggravated assault against his mother. He wasn't at the county jail, said Bernie Weisenfeld, who wouldn't elaborate.

Authorities said they expected to charge him with murder.

The slain sisters were identified as India Duncan, 6, and Aliah Scott, 10. Both were strangled, according to autopsies performed today.

Their mother, Lucille Bevans, 38, who managed a KFC restaurant in Mount Holly, was struck on the head with the hammer. She was attacked as she held her 1-year-old nephew, said Weisenfeld. A 13-year-old son the home before police arrived.

Bevans was treated at Underwood Memorial Hospital in Woodbury for a head wound. The baby was unhurt.

Weisenfeld said investigators would interview Bevans and her 13-year-old son before proceeding. Bevans is the mother of Marqueese Lee, the two girls and the 13-year-old.

Neighbors decribed the slain children as well-behaved, fun-loving sisters. Their half-brother, neighbors said, was unfriendly and distant.

No one had a clue what motivated the attack.

Lt. Thomas Sullivan, chief of detectives for the Gloucester County Prosecutors's Office, said that when officers arrived on the scene - a blue ranch-style home at 505 Red Bank Ave. - about 8:30 p.m., they encountered the suspect threatening to do harm to himself. He held a knife to his stomach, police said.

Police talked to him through the front door, holding him at bay for 90 minutes - until a SWAT team subdued him with pepper spray, Sullivan said.

The girls appeared to have died of blunt-force trauma, but a cause won't be determined until an autopsy is completed, Sullivan said.

Police were seeking a motive for the attacks.

Neighbors said a 13-year-old boy, Jamil, who also lived in the home, escaped before police arrived.

Shayla Wilson, 35, whose young children played with the girls, was - like other residents in this working-class neighborhood - shocked by the brutal slayings.

"He never seemed like anything was wrong with him," Wilson said of the suspect. "He was quiet. This is pretty shocking."

"They were a tight family," said Linda Liberto, 50, a nurse who lives around the corner. "She raised them good."

Neighbors said the family moved in less than a year ago.

Amy Biscoglia, 8, a third-grader at Oaks View Elementary and a classmate of India, said: "I always see her at school. Now I'm not gonna see her anymore."