A father and his seven children were all killed in a carbon monoxide poisoning in Maryland, police said on Tuesday.

Investigators said 36-year-old Rodney Todd, his two sons and five daughters were accidentally poisoned by carbon monoxide after the father used a generator to keep them warm all through the night.  Their electricity was cut off because Todd couldn't pay for the bills.

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"I'm just numb. I'm just numb. Like it's a nightmare but it's not," said Tyisha Luneice Chambers, the children's mother. "If I had known he was without electricity, I would have helped."

Todd and his kids were last seen alive on March 28. Todd's supervisor and co-workers, friends and school workers kept knocking at their door on Monday, but no one answered.  The police, who responded to reports that the family was missing, found their bodies inside the home.

"The children were all in beds and it appears as though they were sleeping," Princess Anne Police Chief Scott Keller said.

"They didn't have electricity. Probably it was bedtime and they decided they needed some light and probably some heat, because toward the end of March even though it was spring we were having some pretty chilly nights."

Keller said the Delmarva Power company who had cut off Todd's electricity supply had been subpoenaed to explain why and when it shut off the power at the family's home. 

Maryland law states that utility firms are barred from terminating electric services to households due to nonpayment of bills from the period beginning November 1 to March 31 without an affidavit filed with the Public Service Commission.

A Delmarva Power spokesman said the company is conducting an internal investigation as well.

Several questions were also raised as police probe Todd and his children's death.  One was why Todd ran a gas-powered generator inside his kitchen.  Investigators assumed Todd didn't want his neighbors to get bothered by the loud noise of the machine, had it been placed outside.

Another question Todd's friends had been asking was why Todd did not seek financial assistance to pay for utility bills this year - which he had done in the past.  The Office of Home Energy Programs in Somerset County allows families to apply once a year.

Todd had been raising his kids -- aged 15, 13, 12, 10, 9, 7 and 6, alone since he got divorced from his wife September last year.  Sarah Hardy, one of Todd's close friends said the mother left all her kids, even her oldest son from a previous relationship.

Chambers denied she abandoned them. 

"He wasn't a single parent. I was in their lives. I don't have drug problems. I love my kids and I'm sorry their father passed as well," she said.

Todd's co-worker, Bilel Smith, remembers him as someone who would always smile and laugh.

"He's the man you need to know and the man you want to be. This is breaking our hearts, " Smith said.

TagsMaryland, Carbon Monoxide Poisoning, Rodney Todd, co