“I don’t have to tell you how good it feels to have these two defendants in custody,” the chief, John Tedesco of the Troy Police Department, said at a news conference on Saturday.
He said the motive was unknown, adding that the police were confident there would be no further arrests but that “it’s certainly open as we continue.”
The suspects, James W. White, 38, and Justin C. Mann, 24, both of Schenectady, N.Y., near Albany, were arrested on Friday night. Mr. White and Mr. Mann were arraigned in Troy City Court on Saturday on murder charges and pleaded not guilty. They were being held at the Rensselaer County jail without bail.
Both men have criminal records, Chief Tedesco said, and Mr. Mann was on parole. One of the suspects was acquainted with one of the victims, the chief said, but he declined to give details.
Mr. Mann was sent to prison in 2014 on a robbery charge and was released in June, according to parole records. Mr. White was convicted of manslaughter, sent to prison in 2001 and released in 2010, public records show.
The arrests came after a family was found dead on Tuesday in a basement apartment at 158 Second Avenue in the city’s Lansingburgh neighborhood. A property manager, who had received a call asking him to check on the tenants, entered the apartment and found two women and two children, all unresponsive. They were pronounced dead.
The police identified the victims as Shanta Myers, 36; her children Jeremiah, 11, and Shanise, 5; and her partner, Brandi Mells, 22. Jackie Robinson Sr., the pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church, told The Times Union that Ms. Myers also had an older son who was not home when the killings happened. A GoFundMe pagecreated for the family identified the surviving son as Isaiah, 16.
Chief Tedesco said on Saturday that the victims were murdered in the late evening on Dec. 21, but would not describe how they were killed. He said this week that he had never seen such a “savage” crime.
The police said they relied on technology to help them determine the day of the killings, and investigators are still combing through video, cellphones and cell tower data.
“There’s a lot of grieving that’s going on, and it will continue to go on, but I think this will be a great opportunity for some closure for these families in the community,” Monica Kurzejeski, the deputy mayor of Troy, said at the news conference.
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