Three young children found dead in Merritt, British Columbia

The girl and two boys, all under the age of 10, were found by their mother inside the family's mobile home yesterday afternoon.

The distraught mother, who neighbours say had lived in the home for just a few months, was taken away by ambulance a short time later.

Merritt R-C-M-P Constable Tracy Dunsmore say they have no one in custody but she notes investigators are confident that the general public is not in danger.

Diamond Vale elementary, where the young victims went to school, will be closed today.

As well, a flower memorial is starting to grow at the edge of the police tape that still surrounds the trailer home.

In the days and months before the bodies of his three young children were found lifeless in their family home, Allan Dwayne Schoenborn had several run-ins with police.

The 40-year-old father was arrested three times in the last week alone by RCMP in the small town of Merritt, B.C.: once on an outstanding warrant for driving while prohibited, once for intoxication and again at the local elementary school for uttering threats, RCMP said.

He was arrested on the school incident last Thursday and released that evening over the objections of the Crown.

Less than a year earlier - last May - he was arrested in Vancouver on charges of sexual assault and uttering threats against a woman, according to court documents.

Now police say he is the suspect in the grisly murders of his own children and is considered mentally disturbed, possibly dangerous and on the run.

"There was no reason for us to foresee these circumstances at all," Const. Julie Rattee said when asked if police felt he was a risk following the incidents last week.

Cordon, 5, Max, 8, and Kaitlynne, 10, were found Sunday in their mother's mobile home in Merritt, a tight-knit ranching community of 7,000 about 270 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

Neighbours said the mother had gone out for groceries, only to come home to find her children murdered.