Mom, daughter charged with killing 5 relatives due in court

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — A mother and her adult daughter charged with killing five of their close relatives, including three children, at an apartment outside Philadelphia are due in court Tuesday to enter pleas.

Shana Decree, 46, and her daughter Dominique Decree, 20, each face five counts of homicide and one of conspiracy. Police have not yet given a motive.

The pair are due in Common Pleas Court in Doylestown.

The family members’ bodies were found in their trashed apartment in Morrisville a year ago, according to authorities.

The victims were Shana’s children, Naa’Irah Smith, 25, and Damon Decree Jr., 13, both of Morrisville; Shana Decree’s sister Jamilla Campbell, of Trenton, New Jersey; and Campbell’s 9-year-old twin daughters, Imani and Erika Allen.

Smith, Damon Decree Jr. and the twins had been suffocated, the Bucks County coroner’s office said in March. Campbell had been strangled, according to the coroner.

Authorities discovered the scene after a child welfare officer arrived for an unannounced visit and was let into the building by someone who works there, according to court papers.

Police say they found Shana and Dominique Decree “disoriented” inside the apartment, where furniture had been turned over, drywall was cracked and glass lay around. Police initially said they found four bodies, but they discovered a fifth underneath another that was next to a bed.

The apartment is in a three-story, red brick complex in Morrisville, which sits on the Delaware River northeast of Philadelphia and across from Trenton.

The Associated Press