Man Seized in Stabbing Deaths of 4 in Family

A recent Filipino immigrant was in custody Friday, suspected of a bloody knife attack on five relatives, four of whom were killed.

Joselito C. Camangian, 23, was arrested late Thursday night at a gas station near the small duplex where he lived with the victims and as many as six other relatives since arriving from the Philippines about five months ago.

“There was blood in all the rooms but one bedroom,” said Sgt. Patrick E. Kolstad, a police spokesman. “It looked like there’d been a real violent struggle.”

Police found a 13-inch kitchen knife on the lawn of a nearby house.

Most of the victims had been stabbed repeatedly and had wounds on their arms, indicating that they had tried to fend off the attack, Kolstad said. He added that police do not know the motive for the attack.

Dead Identified

Police identified the dead as Camangian’s brother, Rick, 29; two of his sisters, Emerenciana, 26, and Erlinda, 30, and their niece, Laraina Rodrigues, 15, of Atlanta.

As the bodies were being removed Friday morning, neighbors and relatives, some sobbing, watched from across the street.

Another of the suspect’s sisters, Candida, 26, suffered one stab wound in the abdomen and was in stable condition Friday, according to a spokeswoman at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose.

One neighbor, Helen Blackmon, said, “I heard about three screams (the night of the killings), but we didn’t know if it was a cat or a person.”

The suspect’s uncle, Elmer Gale, who lives in the other half of the duplex, said he ran for aid after Candida and her mortally wounded brother, Rick, knocked on his door and asked for help. Gale said he went to a nearby gas station to call police.

Moments later, the suspect showed up, according to Gale, and calmly said: “Maybe I’m going crazy. I stabbed somebody, and I don’t know what I did. Call the police.”

Kept to Themselves

Neighbors said the residents of the house where the killings occurred had kept to themselves since moving in eight to 10 months ago.

The duplex is in a quiet residential neighborhood within sight of Great America amusement park, where the suspect began work as a food service employee June 2.

Kolstad said Camangian told investigators Friday that he had been in a narcotics rehabilitation program in the Philippines. Drug tests were performed on the Camangian after he was taken into custody, but the results may not be released for several weeks. There is no preliminary indication that he was under the influence of any controlled substances, Kolstad said.