‘I Just Murdered My Family’--Man Arrested in Five Deaths

A man who called police and said, “I just murdered my family” was arrested Saturday outside his Fletcher Hills home after officers persuaded him to surrender. Inside the house, authorities found the bodies of five people who had been shot to death.

The suspected killer, identified as Tufic (Tom) Badih Naddi, surrendered without a struggle in the driveway of his home at about 6 p.m., police said. He was wearing pajamas and holding his hands over his head. The suspect is believed to have shot to death his wife, her parents and brother, and a male friend of the brother.

“There were some in the bedrooms, some in the living room and some in the dining room,” said Lt. Bob Moreau of the El Cajon police. “Some were shot in the head, some in the torso.”

The motive behind the slayings was not immediately known, Moreau said.

Naddi’s 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter were playing in the driveway of the house when police converged to make the arrest.

“I saw a policeman with a rifle crouched behind that car down the street,” said Robert Daynes, the Naddis’ next-door neighbor. “I called the children off the street and into the house.”

Authorities did not immediately identify the victims, but said three were male and two were female.

Daynes said he believed that, in addition to Naddi’s wife, Ida, the victims included her parents, Habib and Lillian Sabbagh, who own the house at 677 Carlow Way. The names of the Sabbaghs’ son and the son’s friend were not known.

Neighbors described the family as very outgoing and friendly and said they had given no outward signs of domestic problems.

Tom Naddi, 44, “was always very friendly. He always seemed to be a very kind person,” Daynes said. “He was always polite, easygoing. He seemed to be more Western than the rest of them.”

Neighbors said the yellow stucco, four-bedroom house is owned by the Sabbaghs but the Naddis had lived there for about four years. The Sabbaghs, a retired couple who had owned a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Jordan, traveled regularly between the United States and Jordan. They had returned unexpectedly Friday night with their son and his friend, Daynes said.

Ida Naddi was described by Karen Christiansen, another neighbor, as “very soft-spoken, very pleasant, always smiling. And she was always very unsure of her English.”

Old World Ways

Habib Sabbagh, who walked with a cane, had become known in the neighborhood for his Old World ways. Christiansen said Sabbagh was so grateful to a woman who had invited him to pick lemons from her tree that he took her by the arm, brought her to his house and presented her with a red dress as a gift.

“They were marvelous people,” said Daynes. “I’m totally dumbfounded. I have no idea what happened.”

Neighbors in this hilly, middle-class area said they did not hear any gunshots.

Staff writer Scott Harris contributed to this story.