2 children drown in Long Island neighbor's pool

The owner of a Long Island, N.Y., home where two neighborhood siblings were found drowned had previously been cited for improper fencing around a pool, local media were reporting Monday.

Sharon Knowles, 7, and Ralph Knowles, 5, were fully clothed when they were pulled from the above-ground pool Sunday, shortly after police received a 911 call from the children's family saying the kids were missing.

The call set off an intensive search.

"A police officer saw what he believed to be a shoe floating in a backyard pool of a neighbor's house," Suffolk County police Sgt. Edward Fandrey told CBS News. Officers jumped in, pulled the kids from the bottom of the murky, 4-foot-deep pool and took them to Southside Hospital where they were pronounced dead, Fandrey said.

The mom "was screaming . . . 'My kids, they found them in the pool!' " a neighbor, Roberto Diaz, told the New York Post.

The owner of the pool, just behind where the children lived, had been cited by the town for improper fencing, Fandrey said. The pool was enclosed, but the framed side of the stockade fence was facing out, instead of the smooth side, which could make the fence easier to climb from outside, he said.

Neighbor Donnavon Downs told CBS he saw the children climbing a tree in their yard earlier in the day. "I saw them on the limb right there, and I don't know if they look over, curious, on the other side, see the pool," he said. "It was very sad."

A makeshift memorial was growing at the children's home, which Newsday reported is owned by a non-profit that provides housing to homeless families. The children's uncle, Henry Valentine, 32, told Newsday the children's mother, whom he identified as Tia Knowles, was "devastated."