Keith Scott

PENN HILLS — A man bludgeoned three people, wounding his girlfriend and killing her two teenage children, in a Pittsburgh suburb, authorities said.

Keith Scott, 41, was arrested early Wednesday and accused of killing 18-year-old Ieisha Drake and her 14-year-old brother, Naim Drake, on Tuesday night in Penn Hills, about 10 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Scott's girlfriend, Nikesha Warren, also was stabbed in the face and chest, Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton said. She was taken to a hospital, but her condition was not released.

"She was able to speak to our officers last night before she was transported but had severe injuries around the head and face," Burton said. "But she was conscious, and she was talking."

As he was about to be arrested, Scott attempted to kill himself by slashing his throat and was hospitalized Wednesday with a superficial wound on his neck, said Lt. Bill Palmer, head of the Allegheny County Police Department's homicide unit.

Scott is not the children's father, Palmer said. He and Warren have been in an on-and-off relationship for about eight years, but police were still investigating the sequence of events Tuesday night, Palmer said.

Officers responded to a call at about 9:40 p.m. from a person who entered the house, found Warren locked in the basement, bleeding profusely from her face, and found her son dead on the couch, according to a criminal complaint.

The boy also had sustained several stab wounds to the chest, according to the police complaint. Ieisha Drake's body was found in a second-floor bedroom, and had "obvious signs of trauma to the head and face area," according to the complaint.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner determined both died of blunt force trauma to the head, but a deputy refused to say if the autopsies also confirmed stab wounds, as police described in the criminal complaint. Allegheny County police did not immediately return calls on the autopsy findings, and authorities haven't said what kind of object might have been used.

Police were able to interview Warren late Tuesday. She identified Scott as the person who had injured her and her children, according to the complaint.

The home is in a secluded town house complex containing nearly 70 two-story units that residents say rent for $600 to $700 a month. Some units are boarded up, others have bed sheets for curtains, ripped screens and blinds, or wood slats propped in the window frames to prevent them from being opened from the outside.

Still, the residents describe the area as quiet and an infrequent destination for police.

Neighbors said they would see Scott with Warren periodically. When around, he would play football with her son and other children in the complex. None of the neighbors remembered the couple fighting.

According to the criminal complaint, one of the people who called police said Scott had called them at about 8:45 p.m. Scott said: "I need to talk to you, it's something serious. I blacked out, I don't know." The unidentified witness said when they asked Scott if he had done something wrong, he responded, "I don't know. I blacked out."

Scott was charged with two counts of homicide, aggravated assault, attempted homicide and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, police said in a statement. He was awaiting arraignment Wednesday afternoon.