A 52-year-old man killed his wife and teenage daughter before taking his own life in a shooting inside a Los Angeles County home Thursday morning, authorities said.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies responded around 8 a.m. to a report of an assault with a deadly weapon at a home in Lakewood, a city about 20 miles southeast of Los Angeles. A caller told dispatchers her father had fired a gun at her and was lying unconscious nearby, deputies said.
When deputies arrived, they met the caller, a 19-year-old woman, outside the home. She was not injured and was taken in for questioning.
Inside the house, deputies found a man lying on the floor in the den with a gunshot wound to his upper torso. He was identified as the father and shooter, Hector Lionel Alfaro, 52.
Deputies then discovered Alfaro’s 48-year-old wife, Roxana Rodriguez, in a bedroom suffering from gunshot wounds to her torso. In a second bedroom, deputies found the couple’s 17-year-old daughter, Sienna Alfaro, who had also been shot. All three were pronounced dead at the scene.
"Through investigation, Homicide Investigators learned gunshots were heard within the residence by Alfaro’s 19-year-old daughter while she was asleep," the sheriff’s department said in a statement obtained by FOX11 Los Angeles. "Alfaro then appeared near her armed with a handgun and shot at her several times; however, she was not struck by the gunfire. Alfaro then shot himself while standing near his 19-year-old daughter."
Two firearms were recovered from the home.
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Authorities have not identified a motive. The investigation remains ongoing.
"Our hearts are broken as we share the tragic loss of a loving mother and her daughter, whose lives were taken by an act of unimaginable violence," wrote Andrew, the husband to the couple’s eldest daughter Desiree, in a GoFundMe post. "This devastating loss has left behind their surviving children, who are now facing the world without the people who meant everything to them."
Sienna’s soccer teammate, Hazel Ferman, remembered her friend as "a ray of sunshine" at a candlelight vigil on Saturday, according to KABC-TV.
"She's a very jolly person," Ferman said. "Her smile would bright up the room. Her energy was just out of this world, man like she would walk in, even though she's a shy girl, when she would smile is like everybody knew that we just connected."