Four die | Three sisters, relative found dead in vehicle

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The Canadian Press

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KINGSTON, Ont. - Investigators were piecing together Wednesday the mystery of how a car carrying three teenage sisters and one of their relatives ended up in the Rideau Canal, northeast of Kingston.

The bodies of three teens, ages 13, 17 and 19, all from Quebec, were found along with a 50-year-old woman, described only as a relative, inside a vehicle that had submerged in the northernmost lock at Kingston Mills.

The group had been on vacation in southern Ontario and were on their way back to Quebec, police said Wednesday.

"It breaks my heart just saying it," Const. Michael Menor, spokesman for Kingston Police, said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"You have a family, they've all drowned. It's just horrifyingly tragic."

Built in the early 1800s, the giant locks are used to lift boats between different levels of water. Investigators are puzzled, Menor said, because they have yet to determine what the car carrying the four Quebec women was doing in the area.

"It's very very peculiar. There's no rhyme or reason," Menor said. "It's just not an area that anyone would drive their car out to."

Police believe the car ended up in the water sometime Monday overnight. Parks Canada employees called police around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday after discovering the vehicle, submerged in about five metres of water.

Later that day, police divers pulled the bodies of the four victims along with their car out of the water.

So far, police say no one has come forward to say they saw the car go into the water.

"Again, it's strange," said Menor.

Police declined to release the names of the victims or their hometowns, saying loved-ones hadn't been notified. But CTV Ottawa reported that all four victims were from Montreal.