County probes mother-daughter deaths

MADERA, California (AP):

Madera County authorities are investigating the deaths of a five-year-old girl and her mother.

Sheriff's officials say deputies were called to a home in the small, unincorporated community of Ahwahee around 4:30 a.m. yesterday after the child's grandfather found the girl with her throat slashed in a bedroom.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Erica Stuart says the body of her 23-year-old mother was found nearly three hours later under a nearby bridge on Highway 49, about a half-mile from the Mariposa County line. Stuart says the woman apparently jumped from the 200-foot-high structure.

Investigators are still trying to determine possible motives for the deaths. They have not released the names of the woman and girl.