2 toddlers dead in Chicago after stabbing, high-rise plunge

Two toddlers died in Chicago early Thursday after police said a woman stabbed her father, left one of the children in a bathtub and then jumped from an 11th-floor apartment with the other child.

The woman was found on the ground with her one-year-old son about 2 am on Thursday as her father lay bleeding in the apartment while the other child, a 2-year-old boy, was in the bathtub, police said, citing preliminary information.

After building security directed officers to the apartment in Chicago's South Shore neighbourhood, police said they found the unresponsive boy in the bathtub and a 70-year-old man with stab wounds and cuts to his face and body.

Both children were pronounced dead at Comer Children's Hospital, while the man and woman were hospitalised in critical condition at the University of Chicago Medical Centre, police said.

Police said the wounded man told officers his daughter stabbed him before jumping out of the window with her son.

Officers could not immediately confirm whether the child found in the bathtub was also the woman's child.

Police detectives were continuing their investigation Thursday morning.