Police suspect that the poisoning case in Preah Sihanouk province which killed a family of three on Tuesday might have been a murder-suicide.

Provincial police chief Chuon Narin said on Wednesday that early diagnosis showed that the family died by poison which was contained in their final meal.

However, he maintained that a team of medical professionals was still examining the food as well as the victims’ excrement and blood.

The victims were identified as Kheng, 43, the husband; Moeng Sophal, 41, the wife, and their 12-year-old daughter, Ly Sivchhing.

Narin alleged that Sophal had put poison in Kheng’s and Sivchhing’s food before she consumed the same substance.

“After her husband and daughter passed away, she killed herself, we assume. As of now, we are still unable to ascertain the real cause [of their deaths],” he said.

Commune 2 police chief Seng Hort said Kheng’s younger brother came to the victims’ house at about 8pm.

Upon arrival, the brother found the doors of the house were locked. So he knocked and shouted several times as he called out to everyone in the house, but to no avail.

After several moments, the brother checked the inside of the house through the glass windows. That is when he saw Kheng sitting on the bathroom floor, with Sivchhing lying in another room dead.

Sophal, on the other hand, was still alive when she was found. She was rushed to the hospital shortly after, but died before a doctor could help her, Hort said.