Mass Murder Family In L.A. Part Of Trend

A man fatally shot his wife, five young children and himself, claiming in a note he faxed to a TV station Tuesday that the couple had just been fired from their hospital jobs and together planned the killings as an escape for the whole family.

"Why leave our children in someone else's hands?" Ervin Lupoe wrote in his letter to KABC-TV. The station posted the letter on its Web site later with some parts redacted.

The station called police after receiving the fax and a phone call from Lupoe, and a police dispatch center also received a call from a man who said, "I just returned home and my whole family's been shot."

Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 8:30 a.m. and found the bodies.

All were shot in the head, some multiple times, coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said. The killings may have occurred between Monday evening and early Tuesday, based on neighbors' accounts of firecracker sounds, he said.

Although the fax asserted that Ana Lupoe planned the killings of the whole family, police Lt. John Romero said Ervin Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.

The Los Angeles Times reports that area police continued their investigation Wednesday, a day after mourners held a candlelight vigil outside the home where the recently fired X-ray technician killed his wife, his children and then himself.

About 30, mostly Latino, mourners gathered and repeated the rosary in Spanish as they gathered in front of the home, with the family vehicles still parked in the driveway, the newspaper reported. A white poster with black writing read: "Rest in Peace Family Lupoe," and Santeria candles and teddy bears crowded a corner of the driveway.

Myrna Navarro, 35, who lives across the street from the Lupoe home, said that the family moved in when their eldest daughter, Brittney, was a baby and the two sets of twins had not yet been born. Navarro said she heard about the shootings while at work.

"I was just in shock, my body, I just got the goose-bumps," she told The Times.

Ana Lupoe's body was found in an upstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple's twin 2-year-old boys. The bodies of an 8-year-old girl and twin 5-year-old girls were found alongside Ervin Lupoe in another bedroom. Both parents were 40.

It was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year. Police urged those facing tough economic times to get help rather than resort to violence.

"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."

Ervin Lupoe removed three of the children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas, the principal told KCAL-TV. Crescent Heights Elementary School Principal Cherise Pounders-Caver said nothing seemed to be troubling Ervin Lupoe, and she did not ask why the family was moving.

Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles released a statement confirming Lupoe and his wife were fired as medical technicians more than a week ago. The hospital said the firings followed an internal investigation but would not specify why they lost their jobs.

In his letter, Ervin Lupoe claimed he and his wife both had been fired and that she suggested they kill themselves and their children. Police described the fax but did not release details.

The letter indicated that Lupoe and his wife had been investigated for misrepresenting their employment to an outside agency 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."

Lupoe's letter said the couple complained to the human resources department and eventually were offered an apology but two days later they were fired.

"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 letter, Lupoe wrote, "Oh lord, my God, is there no hope for a widow's son?" The phrase is frequently found in Internet discussions about the novel "The Da Vinci Code," Freemasons and Mormonism.

Kaiser Permanente said staff was "saddened by the despair in Mr. Lupoe's letter ... but we are confident that no one told him to take his own life or the lives of his family."

Police Capt. Billy Hayes said the hospital may have had reason to fire the couple. "It wasn't that he was laid off as a result of the economic situation," he said.

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.

The two-story home, much larger than its one-story neighbors, sits in front of a railroad track in Wilmington, a small community about 18 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. A children's playset stood in the backyard.

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.

Retired truck driver Jaime Solache, who lives a few doors down, said many of these newer, larger homes in the neighborhood had gone into foreclosure. The Lupoe house, which has a sign by the driveway reading "The Lupoe's Pad," is about 6 years old, Solache said.

News of the killings sent shivers through the community, and several neighbors came to the yellow police tape to watch a steady procession of officials enter and leave the home.

"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."

In 1994, Lupoe was charged with carrying a concealed firearm but it was either dismissed or not prosecuted, court documents show.

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 in 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 in the accident, said the case did not involve any serious injuries and the family was expected to receive "well below $10,000," he said.

Lupoe called 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 it wasn't a problem.

The region has been shaken by several recent mass murders.

Southern California family tragedies over the past year included a Christmas Eve massacre of nine people in Covina by a gunman who later killed himself. Six died in a Porter Ranch murder-suicide in October; five members of a San Clemente family died in a mysterious suicide in June; and five died in a murder-suicide in Yorba Linda in February.