Ex-Boyfriend Held in Double Killing : Crime: Two sisters are shot to death in their Sepulveda duplex. A gunman chases down a man running for help and wounds him in the back.

Two sisters were shot to death and a man was wounded when an ex-boyfriend of one of the women allegedly invaded her Sepulveda home early Wednesday and began firing a shotgun, Los Angeles police said.

Police said Dean Roger McGrath, 29, was arrested on suspicion of murder about 12 hours after the shootings, which took place at a duplex in the 8500 block of Orion Avenue. Police said domestic problems motivated the shootings.

Sisters Marleene Evelyn Taylor, 32, and Kathleen Taylor Fien, 30, were hit with shotgun blasts at 1:30 a.m. inside the small, two-bedroom house, Detective Michael Brandt said. Anthony Deluca, 28, ran from the house calling for help, but the gunman chased him down about six houses away and shot him in the back, police said. He collapsed on a neighbor’s front porch after he had knocked on the door and called for help.

Police said Taylor’s two young sons--Tony, a 4-year-old fathered by Deluca, and Jake, a 2-year-old

fathered by McGrath--were asleep in the house when McGrath allegedly entered through an unlocked door and began shooting, but they were unharmed.

Police said the boys awoke to find their mother dead in another room. They were later taken into custody by juvenile authorities who were looking for relatives they could stay with.

Two neighbors called police when shots and screams were heard in the neighborhood of mostly single-family houses that back up to the San Diego Freeway--one block south of an area where streets were barricaded by police this year in an effort to reduce drug dealing and related crimes.

“I heard muffled shots and then shooting outside. Someone was screaming for help,” said Sonya Stanchfield, who lives in the duplex next to where the shootings began. “It was pretty wild for this neighborhood. We’ve had problems around here, but nothing like this before.”

Taylor was dead when police arrived and Fien died while being transported to Panorama Community Hospital in Panorama City. Deluca was in critical but stable condition in an undisclosed hospital. Police said Deluca identified McGrath as their attacker.

McGrath was arrested without a struggle at a house in North Hollywood after police checked other locations where the suspect was known to have stayed. A shotgun believed to be the murder weapon was found in the house.

Brandt said the shootings were apparently motivated by problems involving McGrath, Taylor and Deluca.

Police and neighbors said McGrath and Taylor and her two sons moved into the duplex four months ago along with Fien and her husband, David Fien. On April 21, McGrath was arrested at the duplex on a drunk driving warrant and served 66 days in the County Jail before being released June 29, authorities said.

While McGrath was in jail, Deluca either began visiting often or moved into the small duplex, police and neighbors said. Since his release from jail, it was not known if McGrath had contacted Taylor or visited the duplex before his arrival early Wednesday. David Fien was not at the duplex at the time of the shootings.

“The motivation was domestic problems, but we are still trying to figure out what the relationships were,” Brandt said.

Neighbors knew little about the people living in the small, beige duplex, surrounded by a neatly trimmed lawn and chain-link fence. “They were very quiet and stayed totally to themselves,” said John Stanchfield, who lives next door.

Neighbors said the two sisters and the two children were seen playing on the lawn early Tuesday evening and later Taylor sat on the front porch with Deluca. “There was no sign that anything was coming,” Stanchfield said.

According to police and court records, Taylor had not reported any previous problem with McGrath and had not sought a restraining order to keep him away.

Taylor worked as a clerk at a Northridge department store and wore the same steel-gray dress so often that neighbors said they thought it was a uniform. The dark-haired Taylor was described as “very tall, very thin, very beautiful.”

Neighbors said Deluca worked in an auto-related business. Last week, he approached a neighbor and offered to buy her car.

It was unknown by police and neighbors if Kathleen Fien and McGrath had been employed. Some neighbors said Fien spent much of her time watching her sister’s children, rarely left the house and spoke to no one. Former neighbors said McGrath spent a lot of time working on cars.

Before moving to the duplex, McGrath, the sisters and the two boys lived in a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks away on Parthenia Avenue but were evicted Feb. 6 for not paying their rent, the manager said.

Residents of that complex, many of whom declined to give their names because they feared McGrath, said he was a burly man who drank heavily and lost his temper frequently.

“He was susceptible to blowing his top,” said one neighbor. He said McGrath and Taylor argued frequently.

Yet, many said, he doted on his 2-year-old son. “He was crazy about him,” one resident said.

In addition to serving a jail sentence for drunk driving, court records show that McGrath was arrested Sept. 21, 1988, in Los Angeles on suspicion of possession and sale of 28.5 grams of cocaine. On Jan. 16, 1990, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Alan B. Haber dismissed the charge at the request of prosecutors. The people’s motion said it was “in the interests of justice” because the defendant is “factually innocent.”

Times staff writer Patricia Klein Lerner contributed to this story.

A LOOK AT NEIGHBORHOOD: B5