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Officers also found the bodies of four children, identified Tuesday as: Elsa Rodriguez, 9, a third-grade student at Hillcrest Elementary School; sister Vanessa, 4, enrolled at Hillcrest’s pre-kindergarten program; brother Angel, also known as Pedro, 3; and sister Carena, 1.

The children were all found tucked into beds at the townhouse, according to police.

Post-mortem examinations of all five individuals removed from the home were conducted at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore on Tuesday.

Chase said that all five examinations are ‘‘pending,” with more toxicology studies required for conclusive determinations.

It could take at least a week for more information, he said. ‘‘Toxicology screenings are a standard part of an autopsy,” Chase said. ‘‘What the ‘pending’ does is rules out certain things, such as stabbing or shooting.”

Police continue to search for the children’s mother, 25-year-old Daysi Marlene Benitez, who they have classified as a missing person.

Chase said that police have talked with her sister, a Frederick resident, who last heard from Benitez a week and a half ago. There are no other leads into her whereabouts as of Tuesday afternoon.

Anyone with information on where she could be is asked to call the Frederick Police Department at 301-600-2102.

Asked whether the disappearance of Benitez could be linked to foul play, Chase said police ‘‘have to suspect everything.

‘‘We hope she is still alive,” he said. ‘‘The possibility she is deceased also exists. We have nothing except her absence, and her last contact as a week and a half ago.”

Marita Loose, spokeswoman for Frederick County Public School, said a community liaison for Hillcrest Elementary went to the home Monday for a well-being check after Elsa and Vanessa missed several days of school.

‘‘They had not been at school for a while ... and that is unusual for them,” she said.

Unable to contact someone in the house, the liaison called police, who entered the home and discovered the five bodies.

On Tuesday, grief counselors were at the school to help students and staff members grieve with the loss of the two sisters. Principal Grason Jackson sent a letter home with students, encouraging families to talk about the students’ death.

‘‘It has been a difficult time for our students and staff,” Jackson said. ‘‘We are working hard to make sure we help them [students] as well as ourselves deal with this.”

Neighborhood reaction

Neighbors, hundreds of whom were gathered at the scene on Monday, said they noticed that no one had come in or out of the household for several days.

Louise Lewis, whose house faces the Benitez home, and her niece Rebecca Reckely, who lives a block away and is president of the homeowner’s association, said they often saw the father playing with the four children outside.

The women said they had seen Rodriguez recently washing his vehicles — a green minivan, a maroon minivan and a white Nissan Sentra — but had not seen Benitez for at least three weeks. They also had not seen the cars move from their parking spaces in the past week. Reckley and Lewis were going to call police Monday when they saw several officers already at the home.

‘‘I can’t imagine what makes someone do something like this,” Reckley told reporters. ‘‘It just doesn’t register.”

Benitez seemed less involved in the children’s lives than Rodriguez, and was not as friendly as he was, Lewis said. She would often ‘‘walk with her eyes down,” Lewis said.

‘‘[Rodriguez] really watched the children a lot,” Lewis said. ‘‘We didn’t really see [Benitez] out too much.”

Lewis said the family had in years past allowed other adults and families to live in the home for short periods, but had not done so in recent months. She had complained to police about clutter on the family’s porch, which is against homeowner association rules, she said.

Other neighbors were struggling to understand the details of the tragedy and cope with emotions.

Neighbor Don Gregory was running errands Monday when saw yellow police tape and later news helicopters hovering over his community. He headed to the scene, where he remained for several hours as the story unfolded.

‘‘Everybody’s putting their own conclusions together,” Gregory said. ‘‘Nobody really knows what happened.” As the father of a 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, he said the deaths made him want to ‘‘get closer to his own children and hug them.”

‘‘It makes me think twice about life,” Gregory said.