Acclaimed foster mother Pat McCollum, her disabled son and an 11-year-old girl were identified Thursday as the victims killed in a stabbing in College Hill.
Cincinnati police reported receiving multiple calls for a disturbance in the 1000 block of Springbrook Drive. When officers arrived, they found 66-year-old Anthony Mathis retreating into a home.
Chief Theetge said SWAT officers tried to negotiate with Mathis for several hours before entering the home.
Inside, they found Mathis with self-inflicted knife wounds, along with 78-year-old McCollum, DJ McCollum, 32, and Cadence McCollum, 11, dead from apparent knife wounds.
DJ was adopted by McCollum when he was young. The relationship between Cadence and McCollum is unknown at this time.
Mathis was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for treatment, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Mathis' relationship to the victims is unclear at this time. Police did not immediately respond to The Enquirer's request for comment.
McCollum says she will 'never divorce' son DJ
McCollum had cared for more than seventy children over the course of twenty years and adopted at least four.
McCollum was also a longtime member of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, according to its pastor, the Rev. Damon Lynch Jr.
“She was a great mother and good with kids,” Lynch said. He recalled that she often arrived on Sundays with a large number of children in tow.
According to a 2012 Enquirer report, McCollum never married. She had her first child in high school, dropped out and completed her high school education in the evenings and during summer school.
She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in social work from the University of Cincinnati. She taught at the university and trained foster parents. She became a foster parent in 1991 and specialized in caring for children with special needs.
DJ was McCollum's fourth adopted child. He came to her at the age of 7. As an infant, he was severely disabled when 85% of his body burned after an older child dropped a match in his crib.
She adopted him in 2002 and subsequently watched him walk on prosthetic legs and graduate from Woodward High School.
In 2012, she told The Enquirer that she expected DJ to live with her for the rest of her life.
“Either I die first, or he dies,” she said. “I will never divorce him again.”
The investigation into Thursday's stabbing is still ongoing. Police are asking anyone with information to call 513-352-3542.
This article originally appeared on the Cincinnati Enquirer: Police identify three victims killed in stabbing in College Hill
