Woman finds both parents dead in Harlem apartment on Easter: 'We were supposed to go to church today'

 A Harlem woman planning to go to Easter mass with her parents instead found them both dead from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning in their Harlem apartment Sunday morning.

"We were supposed to go to church today," the tearful daughter said after making the shocking discovery.

The daughter and her husband Garry McFadden became concerned when Jadoris Crawford, 71, and John Crawford, 80, stopped answering their phones so they rushed over to the apartment inside the apartment on First Ave. near 101st St. and opened the door with their key, only to be met by a heavy odor of gas.

"The smell hit me in the face and I ran to open up the terrace door," McFadden said.

He found his father-in-law lying in bed, face down in a pool of vomit, his hands stiff. His mother-in-law was sitting in her TV chair.

"I thought she was sleeping but she was not breathing so I knew she was dead too," he recalled.

McFadden called 911 and first responders arrived just after 9 a.m., FDNY Dep. Chief James Coyne said at the scene.

“There were high levels of CO in the apartment,” he said. “The oven was on — no food in the oven, but the oven was on.”

He said there were neither smoke or carbon monoxide detectors in the home — though there were bases on the walls for both devices.

“A defective stove can cause carbon monoxide,” Coyne said, cautioning that the investigation was ongoing.

They ventilated the apartment and no other apartments were evacuated.

McFadden had just dropped off dinner at his in-laws apartment Saturday afternoon.

“We were having a good time. I cooked dinner for them and all that — and this is what I come back to?” he said.

"I know my mother wouldn't have been strong without my father and my father wouldn't have been strong without my mother," the daughter said, choking up. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)

“We left at 2:30 in the afternoon they were all fine. Come back today and they're all dead.”

He said his in-laws were the type to "give their shirt off their back." They’d been married for over 46 years.

Their daughter said her mother was dedicated to the church.

"I know my mother wouldn't have been strong without my father and my father wouldn't have been strong without my mother," the daughter said, choking up. "I know they're at peace with the lord Jesus."

The city medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine how they died.

Police and the FDNY were on scene investigating Sunday.
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