A woman returned to her Phnom Penh Thmey home in Sen Sok district in the capital after work only to find her husband hanging and her three daughters strangled to death.

Sen Sok district police chief Hour Meng Vang told The Post on Thursday that Chea Sokchum, 40, a tuk-tuk driver, lived in a rented room in the commune.

Daughters Chum Mengchou, 16, Chum Mengchen, five and Chum Mengchien, four, were also found dead in the 9pm incident on Wednesday.

Police found four dead bodies in different parts of the house. Two girls were on the ground floor bed while the teen was in an upstairs room.

Sokchum’s body was on a ladder and his neck was tied with a krama. There was blood flowing from his nose, said Meng Vang.

“According to his wife, Dim Sokneath, 38, who is a garment factory worker, and the evaluation and examination of the bodies, we concluded it was a murder carried out by the father. He killed his daughters and then himself,” he said.

After checking the bodies, police handed them over to the wife and relatives for the funeral, he said.

The man’s younger sister, Chea Sreyneang, 27, who stays in a rented room nearby, told The Post that at 9pm, she heard her sister-in-law scream. She went to check and saw her brother hanging and her two small nieces dead on the bed.

“I was extremely frightened and did not know what to do besides cry as I am pregnant too. My sister-in-law called neighbours to help lower her husband to the ground. She then went upstairs and screamed after finding her oldest daughter dead as well,” she said.

Sokneath told The Post her husband had threatened to kill himself and the kids whenever there were disputes. On Wednesday, before leaving for work at the factory, she said she had a small argument with him.

“I don’t know if it’s inhumanity. The police said my kids died from strangling. After that, he hung himself using a krama,” she said.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court forensic expert Nong Sovanroth, who checked the bodies, confirmed that the children were strangled.