LA man kills wife, 5 children, himself
By THOMAS WATKINS
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES
A medical technician apparently distraught over losing his job at a hospital fatally shot his wife, five young children and himself at their harbor-area home Tuesday. Police said the victims included two sets of twins.
All were shot in the head, coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said.
Ervin Antonio Lupoe and his wife, Ana, formerly worked at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles, the facility said in a statement that expressed sadness but gave no details of their employment or why it ended.
Shortly before the killings, Ervin Lupoe faxed a letter to a TV station claiming he and his wife had been fired from jobs as medical technicians and she suggested they kill themselves and their children, too.
"So after a horrendous ordeal my wife felt it better to end our lives and why leave our children in someone else's hands, in addition it seems Kiaser Permanente want's us to kill ourselves and take our family with us," the man wrote in the letter, posted late Tuesday on the KABC-TV Web site.
The letter indicated that Lupoe and his wife had been under investigation for misrepresenting their employment to an outside agency in order to obtain childcare. He claimed that an administrator told the couple on Dec. 23: "You should not even had bothered to come to work today you should have blown your brains out."
The couple complained to the human resources department and eventually were offered an apology but two days later the Lupoes were fired, according to the letter. Lupoe said he was a special procedural tech and his wife was a "mammo tech."
"They did nothing to the manager who stated such and did not attempt to assist us in the matter, knowing we have no job and five children under 8 years with no place to go. So here we are," the note said.
At the bottom of the note, Lupoe wrote, "Oh lord, my God, is there no hope for a widow's son?"
The Kaiser Permanente statement made no comment on the claims in Lupoe's fax.
"It looks like they might have had grounds for his termination ... it wasn't that he was laid off as a result of the economic situation," said police Capt. Billy Hayes.
Lupoe's fax identified his children as Brittney, 8; 5-year-old twins Jaszmin and Jassely; and twins Benjamin and Christian, ages 2 years and 4 months. Winter confirmed the identities of the girls, but the boys' names were pending.
It was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year.
"Today our worst fear was realized," said Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner. "It's just not a solution. There's just so many ways you find alternatives to doing something so horrific and drastic as this."
Crescent Heights Elementary School Principal Cherise Pounders-Caver told KCAL-TV that about 1 1/2 weeks ago, the father removed the girls from school and said they were going to Kansas. The principal said she did not ask why the family was moving, but that nothing seemed to be troubling Lupoe. She described the girls as very "loving."
Councilwoman Janice Hahn said Ana Lupoe apparently had relatives in Kansas.
Amanda Garcia, 22, who lives two doors away from the Lupoe home, heard the news and came home from work to check on a niece and nephew who live with her.
"They seemed like a happy family," she said, choking back tears.
The family held birthday parties and the children always played outside, she said. She noted that she would see Lupoe come home from work every day wearing his scrubs.
Police described the fax sent by Lupoe but did not release the detail reported by KABC.
"He was going through some critical situations at the job, that's what he described in that two-page letter, ongoing problems at the job, and that's what prompted him to take his own life and his family's, from what was said in the fax letter," Garner said.
The TV station called police after receiving the fax, and a police communications center also received a call from a man who stated, "'I just returned home and my whole family's been shot,'" Garner said.
"There is a disconnect but we believe our suspect is the one who called," Garner said.
Garner said a note was found in the home, but it was not clear if it was what had been faxed to the TV station.
Officers rushed to the two-story home in Wilmington, near the sprawling twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, shortly before 8:30 a.m., apparently within minutes of the killings. Garner said the officers could still smell the gunshot residue and a revolver was found by the man's body.
Winter, the coroner's official, said all the victims were found in upstairs bedrooms. The father was with three of the children in one room and the mother was with two of the children in another room.
Although the fax asserted that the woman was involved, police Lt. John Romero said, "It is apparent that the suspect in the murder is the male adult."
Anthony Diaz, 16, often rides his skateboard past the home. He said he heard two people screaming at each other inside the house about two weeks ago.
"You know, like how a husband and wife argue," Diaz said. "When I heard it, I thought it was not that big of a deal."
The two-story home, much larger than its one-story neighbors, sits in front of a railroad track in Wilmington, a 10-square-mile community about 18 miles south of downtown. A sign by the driveway read "The Lupoe's Pad." A children's playset stood in the backyard and a pickup truck and sport utility vehicle were parked in the concrete front yard.
Teresa Soto, 52, who lives in a home that was part of the same development, said Lupoe knocked on her door when he first moved into his house about three or four years ago.
She said he was unhappy with the construction quality and was looking for neighbors who also had problems.
"He was very friendly, a professional person," Soto said. "He wanted to see how everybody else felt."
Soto said Lupoe added a new bedroom to his home within the last couple of years.
Neighbor Gilbert Sandoval said he bought a flashlight from a garage sale at the Lupoe house a year ago.
"He was a nice, friendly guy," Sandoval said. "It's terrible."
McFarland Avenue is in a working-class neighborhood near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Many residents work as longshoremen or truck drivers servicing the ports. The work is casual and has dried up in recent months, said retired truck driver Jaime Solache, who lives a few doors from the Lupoe home.
Freight trains rumble along a track behind his house in the early morning, blowing horns as they roll through a crossing.
Behind the Lupoe home a cinderblock wall at least 7-feet-high buffers the property from the train track. Cranes that unload container vessels can be seen in the distance.
News of the killings sent shivers through the community, and dozens of neighbors flocked around the yellow police tape to watch a procession of officials enter and leave the home. The bodies were wheeled out in the afternoon under blankets.
"This area right here is quiet, calm," said Armando Chacon, who lives one block north. "People like to sit out at weekends and barbecue. Other than this, no problems at all."
On his Facebook page, Lupoe posted photographs of a daughter at karate class, and of a fancy tub and wash basins in an apparently remodeled bathroom. Postings indicated that from May to October of last year, he regularly played online poker for fictional stakes at the "Chips 'N Chat" Web site, sometimes almost daily.
In 1994, he was charged with carrying a concealed firearm but it was either dismissed or not prosecuted, court documents indicated. Records also indicated he was convicted in 1992 of driving with a suspended license.
Lupoe got a state license to work as a security guard in 1989 and a permit to carry a gun as a security guard in 1993 but both expired on Feb. 28, 2007, said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the state Bureau of Security and Investigative Services.
Lupoe and members of his family were plaintiffs in an auto accident case that had recently been resolved, said John Wallace, an attorney for the defendant in the case. Bob Pierce, a Long Beach attorney who represented the Lupoes, said the case did not involve any serious injuries and the family was expected to receive "well below $10,000," he said.
"This would not have done away with anyone's financial problems" Pierce said. "This would have put a Band-Aid to an artery. And they were not relying on it."
Lupoe called on Monday to find out when the money might be coming, Pierce said.
Pierce told him that it might be another week or two "and he said 'no problem,'" Pierce said.
"He was very calm and cool and collected, very reasonable," he said.
A community meeting was planned later Tuesday in a local church.
http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/CA_Bodies_Found_382089C.shtml
