4 Slain, 1 Wounded as Shootings Jolt Quiet Neighborhood in S.D.

Four people were shot to death and a fifth was seriously wounded Sunday in an apparent robbery at an East San Diego home.

Police said two men and a woman died at the scene. A third man died at Sharp Memorial Hospital, Deputy San Diego County Coroner Jerry Hillbrand said.

The survivor, a man, was in serious condition at a hospital which police declined to identify in order to protect “the only living witness” to the slayings.

Authorities had tentatively identified two of the dead Sunday, but withheld their names. All five people were described by the coroner’s office as Latinos in their 20s.

The home in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood had been ransacked, but police said the motive for the slayings was unclear.

One neighbor said that police had indicated the deaths were carried out execution-style, with some of the victims shot in the head.

Neighbors said that they had suspected that the residents were dealing drugs or smuggling illegal aliens since the home on Hasty Street was rented in August. Police had no immediate comment on those allegations.

“I knew something was going on and I could have saved lives if I had some proof,” said Maurice Hicks, an 80-year-old retiree who lives across the street.

Hicks said that he did not call police because he believed that they would not have investigated without evidence of wrongdoing.

Hicks and other neighbors said that a steady stream of Latino men came and went from the house at odd hours, sometimes staying for a few days or a few weeks. Makeshift curtains always covered the windows and various cars were parked outside the home, many with expired license plate tags.

Hicks said that people frequently left in a white van--which was roped behind a police line Sunday afternoon--in the middle of the night, coming back a few hours later.

“I knew there was something fishy about the house,” Hicks said. “There wouldn’t be that much traffic. You don’t go to work at 12 o’clock in the morning one day and 4 o’clock in the morning the next day.”

Next-door neighbor Chris Dahlke described the occupants as polite people who spoke little or no English.

“They were really quiet-type people,” she said. “They always had a lot of people who they were moving in and out. Maybe it was an alien-type situation.”

Hicks’ nephew and house guest, Gene Johnson, said he heard a volley of shots coming from the house shortly before 1 a.m. There was a pause, and then more shots, he said.

Johnson’s wife, Doris, looked out the window in time to see a large, dark vehicle drive away from the home.

Johnson and next-door neighbor Jon Dahlke responded to cries for help from the lone survivor of the attack, who was lying across the walkway leading to the home. They found him bleeding from a wound to the abdomen.

Another neighbor, Steve Casares, said the man told him in Spanish that he had been robbed and shot, and that there were other victims inside.

Dahlke and Johnson, who could hear moans and gasps inside the home, said they started to enter, but found the lights inoperable.

“I thought that whoever was in there might be in a position to retaliate, so I went back out,” Johnson said.

Police arrived moments later.

The Dahlkes described Hasty Street as a quiet block where a recent burglary was the only crime of note.

“It’s very quiet, very residential,” said Chris Dahlke, who acknowledged that her family would be locking its front door for the first time tonight. “This doesn’t happen in this neck of the woods. It happens someplace else.”