Police found three Britons shot dead in a house near the resort city of Malaga on Spain's Costa del Sol on Wednesday in what they suspect is a double killing and suicide, officials said.
A source in the Civil Guard told AFP that a man and two females were found with bullet wounds in a house in the town of Mijas, southwest of Malaga, and identified them as British.
"An initial hypothesis is being considered that it is a family and that the man killed the woman and then his daughter and then committed suicide," said the source, who asked not to be named.
"The results of the investigation are being awaited for that to be confirmed," said the official, declining to give the ages or any other details of the family.
Several Spanish media cited unnamed sources saying that the mother was disabled and the daughter had Down's Syndrome, but officials would not confirm this.
Police sealed off the yellow villa and its garden containing palm trees a swimming pool in the Torrenueva district of the town, an AFP photographer saw.
Press photographs published online showed officials bringing what appeared to be a body on a stretcher out of the villa earlier.
Media quoted officials and neighbours saying the family had been renting the house for several years.
Reports said the owner of the property had found the family there dead when he visited after not hearing from them for several weeks.
A spokesman for the British embassy in Madrid said: "We are aware of these reports and we are investigating urgently.
