Members of a small Alberta town are mourning the deaths of two young children whom police now believe were killed inside their family home.

Wetaskiwin RCMP have been investigating the deaths of 10-month-old Jayden McConnell and his brother, two-year-old Connor McConnell, since Monday afternoon.

The two boys were found dead at their home in Millet, Alta., south of the Edmonton International Airport. Police were called to the home at about 3:30 p.m. Monday.

Yesterday, the RCMP said a medical examiner had determined that the boys' deaths were homicides.

But police have not revealed how the boys died, for investigative reasons.

The same day the boys died, Edmonton police confirmed that a woman tried to kill herself by jumping off a bridge onto a busy expressway.

The woman survived the fall, though police have not confirmed that it was Allyson McConnell -- the mother of the two dead boys -- who jumped. But investigators have said a car with ties to the McConnell home was found in the parking lot of a nearby toy store.

Community toll

The news has hit Millet residents particularly hard, given the age of the two victims.

"It's just mind-blowing, because I have two small children myself," Jacqui Nichols told CTV Edmonton. "And it's horrible to think of what happened."

Dawn Trent and her son placed a pair of stuffed animals on a makeshift memorial outside the family home on Wednesday.

Trent did not know the McConnell boys, but has been hit by the loss.

"It's our little town and it can happen anywhere, it can happen to anybody," Trent told CTV Edmonton.

"And it's hard every day and I just feel bad for their family," she said, fighting back tears.

On Facebook, father Curtis McConnell has been writing about the loss of his two sons and left with "unanswerable questions."

McConnell said he is "holding on to the feeling I got from holding them."

"They loved me so much and I loved them so much."

He said that although he couldn't protect his children, he can still work to be the best person he can be for them.

"I have to live the life my kids would want me to live."

Tragic discovery

Family friend Cara Rotenburger said Curtis McConnell first learned that his wife had been injured when he got a call from police.

"(Curtis) got a call from the Edmonton Police Service stating that Ally McConnell was in the hospital, to which he responded 'Where are my children?'" said Rotenburger, who spoke to McConnell after Monday's tragic events.

Police told him that the children were with a babysitter or neighbour, Rotenburger said.

Then he went home to check.

"(He) went in and looked around for his kids. And they weren't in their rooms or anywhere. He went into a bathroom that they don't use and found his kids ... floating in a tub of water. He pulled them out and laid them out onto the floor and then he ran and got his neighbour," Rotenburger said.

"He was on the phone, screaming his head off, asking, 'Why?'"

Divorce proceedings

The boys' parents had been going through a bitter divorce and related custody battle.

Curtis McConnell met his wife in 2005 when Allyson, an Australian, was living in Canada on a work permit.

They married in her native Australia two years later, but settled in Canada.

But the marriage soured over time, with Curtis McConnell having moved out of the family home in December, when divorce papers were filed.

Court documents reveal Curtis McConnell claimed to have been threatened by his estranged wife and feared that she would move with the children to Australia without his consent.

A statement of defence indicates that Allyson McConnell has "limited family contacts in Alberta" and would have better prospects if she moved back to her homeland.

A judge had not made a final decision on the case, but ruled that the children should stay in Alberta for the time being.

With files from The Canadian Press and CTV Edmonton's David Ewasuk