Bodies of three missing children and woman found in lake in Minnesota

No names have yet been released by local law enforcement sources, but according to the Irish Examiner, the children were all under the age of five, believed to be two boys and a girl.

An investigation was launched Friday morning local time Minnesota, when a man’s body was found at a mobile home park in the town of Maplewood, near Minneapolis.

Police on the scent determined that the mum had left with the children and a widespread searching the area began.

Later that afternoon, Lt Joe Steiner from the Maplewood Police Department could reveal that the woman’s car was found near Vadnais Lake, and that shoes assumed to belong to her children were also discovered on the shores of the lake.

The Ramsey County Sheriff’s office confirmed that the body of the first child was recovered from the lake at around 7.30pm on Friday evening, local time.

Just hours later, the search crews retrieved the body of the second child from the lake.

The bodies of the third child and the woman were found at around 10.30am local time yesterday, and all four bodies were taken to a pathologist's office.

“There’s nothing more tragic than the loss of young children,” Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at a press conference about the ongoing incident on Friday.