The State - News from Jan. 8, 1986

An unemployed carpenter was arrested and charged with setting an apartment fire that killed a woman and her three young children in what officials said was the biggest mass murder in San Luis Obispo County history. Michael James Bonano, 18, was arrested at his makeshift home, a bus on his uncle’s property about a half-block from the scene of Monday’s fire in Nipomo, sheriff’s Sgt. Bill Crout said. He was jailed without bail. Authorities said the suspect was an acquaintance of the victims, but no motive had been established. Identities of the victims were withheld until relatives could be notified.