SEOUL, March 27 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean adoption agency said Thursday that it had seen no signs of any problem with the American couple who adopted the four Korean children found dead this week, calling the deaths of the entire family "unimaginable."
"We are shocked and dismayed. I can't find words to describe it," Hong Mee-kyung, a director of overseas adoption at Holt Children's Services Inc. in Seoul, said. "Considering the personalities and the attitudes they have shown, it's unimaginable."
U.S. police found the children and their adoptive mother, Sheryl Sueppel, 42, dead Monday morning (U.S. time) at their home in Iowa. Police believe their father, Steven Sueppel, 42, killed his wife and the children before taking his own life. His car was found destroyed in a single-vehicle crash, in which the driver died, according to local reports. The driver could not be immediately identified because of the fire, they said.
Local reports linked the murder-suicide to Sueppel's financial woes. He was charged last month with embezzling nearly US$560,000 from his former employer, Hills Bank and Trust, and with money laundering.
The children's birth mothers will not be notified unless they ask. They were all young, single mothers at the time of the children's births, the agency said.