Justus Ogendi Kebabe admits killing wife and two kids

​It was a gruesome scene: a mother and her two children, ages 8 and 10, dead in a Vadnais Heights apartment building late last night. Justus Ogendi Kebabe, 43, has already confessed to killing his wife and kids.

The mother hadn't shown up at work this week, and her children hadn't attended Willow Lane School, in White Bear Lake, since Monday. A family member called Ramsey County for a welfare check because Kebabe had apparently been behaving erratically.

When deputies paid a visit to the Willow Ridge Apartment building at 1255 County Road D at about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday, they found three bodies in three separate rooms. It looks as though the mom may have been dead longer than her children, and that the kids might have been living in the apartment with their dead mother for several days, Fox9 reports.

Minnesota State Patrol officers got a call of a motorist out of gas around 10:30 p.m., more than an hour before the report of the murders came in. Troopers came to Kebabe's assistance on I-35 near Faribault. But instead of being glad for the help, Kebabe ran from them, leaving a third child, a 4-year-old, behind in the car.

Troopers arrested him for driving with a suspended license, and booked him into Rice County Jail. Only later was the connection to the homicides made.

Kebabe has already confessed to the murders, the Strib reports.