OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — Eyewitness News found out carbon monoxide may have killed a mother and daughter on the Florida Turnpike last week.
Sources told Channel 9’s Shannon Butler the Porsche Cayenne had recently been bought at a buy-here-pay-here type of dealership.
Butler also learned there is an investigation into what happened with the car before it was bought by the 46-year-old woman.
Sources told Butler the deaths were not suicides, but rather, unfortunate and possibly preventable deaths.
When the Porche was discovered, its engine was running, the radio was on and two lifeless bodies were inside.
A trooper spotted the car last Thursday after it had bumped into a guardrail at mile marker 224, but when he pulled up, the mother and daughter were already dead.
Sources told Channel 9 the two victims had signs of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Deputies confirmed at the scene that the victims did not die from the crash.
Latifa Lincoln, 46, had been driving and her daughter, Maksmilla Lincoln, 3, was in the back seat.
Both had red skin and rash-like symptoms, and had vomited, sources said.
The first set of tests done by hazmat teams showed nothing.
Channel 9 was told tests for several substances, including the one for carbon monoxide, came back negative.
But Butler’s sources told her an hour passed from when the troopers first spotted the car to when hazmat teams did the tests on the air inside the vehicle, which may have led to the initial negative test result.
Sources who responded to the scene said they believed the vehicle had just had some kind of work done on it.
There was a mechanic’s receipt on the passenger seat of the car and paper mats on the floor.%
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The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office has not confirmed those details.
The investigation is still underway.
A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said the toxicology reports from the medical examiner will confirm the cause of death, but they may not be completed for several months.