A Portland couple and their 5-year-old daughter are dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning after an apparent murder-suicide, police said.

Authorities found a suicide note alongside the bodies of John and Luray Kuca, both 39, along with their daughter, Ruby, in their Portland home Thursday night. A hose led from the exhaust pipe of a 1966 hearse into their sealed-off bedroom.

Family friend Todd Richards, of Los Angeles, told The Oregonian newspaper that he had received an e-mail Thursday evening from John Kuca, saying that his wife had cancer.

He called authorities, who checked on the family.

John Kuca and his daughter were dead at the scene. Luray Kuca had a faint heartbeat but died at the hospital.

Richards said the e-mail included two attachments, one a "will of sorts," the other a list of people who should receive it. Richards said it was not a suicide note, but he sensed the family was in peril.

John and Luray Kuca were members of a band, Vertigo Butterfly, which had released an album earlier this year.

Authorities said the carbon monoxide in the house was so dense that one officer was treated at a hospital and released.

Another family friend, Guenevere McMahon, of New Mexico, told The Oregonian that Luray Kuca had Stage 4 breast cancer and recently developed a virus in her lung that was related to the cancer.