A woman in Arizona state of the US is suspected of stabbing her three sons to death, hiding their bodies in a closet and then trying to kill herself, police said.

The woman’s brother called police on Thursday after finding her wounded in a bathroom at her residence in Phoenix, authorities said.

Phoenix police said they walked on to a horrific scene: the mother had allegedly stabbed herself in the abdomen, CNN reported.

“She tried to tell officers the children weren’t home,” Phoenix police official Trent Crump said.

The officers found the bodies of her five and eight-year-old sons with stab wounds in a closet.

The body of her youngest son — a two-month-old boy — was eventually found in the same closet, enclosed in a suitcase, police said.

Police said they were investigating the case as a murder, but no charges were immediately announced.

The woman’s brother told investigators that he lived at the home with her. His sister had locked him out of the home, but he managed to get inside, and that was when he founded her wounded, police added.