Mom Found Dead, Her Kids Are Missing

April 22, 2008— -- Three kids are missing and Chicago police want to talk to the father of two of them after the children's mother was discovered dead inside her apartment Monday afternoon.

"Around noon, there was a 30-year-old female found deceased in an apartment," Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti told ABC News.

The woman, Sophia Garcia, had a plastic bag over her head. An autopsy is under way to determine cause of death, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, and the city's homicide unit is investigating.

Family members discovered Garcia's body and called police.

The children have been missing since Friday, when they were released from the Yates Elementary School near the their mother's apartment. It is unclear who may have picked up the children after school and where they were over the weekend, officials said.

Authorities in Illinois issued an Amber Alert Monday for law enforcement and the public to be on the lookout for the woman's three children, brothers Fernando and Oscar Casanova, 11 and 6; and their sister, Karla Casanova, 7.

Police in Chicago would also like to speak to Benito Casanova, the 32-year-old father of the two boys, Ursitti said. "The kids may be in the company of this male," she said.

Casanova is described as a 6-foot, 1-inch Hispanic man with brown hair and brown eyes. He may be driving a silver Dodge Dakota with an Illinois license plate.

Ursitti stressed that Casanova is not considered a suspect in Sophia Garcia's death nor in the abduction of the Casanova children. "This does not make him a suspect; he is just someone the police would like to speak with," she said.

But the Chicago Sun-Times, citing court records, reported Tuesday afternoon that Sophia Garcia had an order of protection against Benito Casanova that was granted in July 2006.