Couple Are Bludgeoned to Death at Home : Crime: They were killed less than an hour after returning to Valinda from a trip to Egypt. Deputies are seeking suspects.

Less than an hour after Arthur and Faye Staten returned Saturday from a 2 1/2-week trip to Egypt they were bludgeoned to death in their neatly kept Valinda home, authorities said.

Faye Staten, 42, was found in the dining room, severely beaten around the head and torso. Her 43-year-old husband was discovered in the master bedroom, clubbed in the same way.

Authorities were seeking suspects and a motive for the attack.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Chris Wahla said there were no signs of forced entry into the home in the 400 block of South Faxina Avenue and there was no information Saturday as to whether anything was stolen. No weapon was recovered in the house.

The Statens’ 24-year-old son, Deandre, was questioned by investigators Saturday, but they said he was not considered a suspect.

The couple returned home around midnight, investigators said. Their son, who lives at the house, told authorities he left about 12:45 a.m. to get something to eat. When he returned 15 minutes later, he said, he found his parents lying dead on the floor.

The killings shocked the middle-class neighborhood in an unincorporated section of the San Gabriel Valley tucked between West Covina, La Puente and Industry, where the family has lived for 13 years.

Ruth Williams, a neighbor who has known the family for 12 years and worked at the Statens’ beauty salon in La Puente, said that as far as she knew the couple had no enemies.

“I met them 12 years ago when I first moved here,” she said. “I don’t know how this could happen. They didn’t have anything but friends.”

Brian Ellis, 24, who grew up with the couple’s son, said gangs are active in the neighborhood but added that the Statens had nothing to do with them.

“They were a real close family,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. These are the two nicest people around.”

Ellis described the couple’s son as soft-spoken and friendly to everyone in the racially mixed neighborhood. Ellis said Deandre Staten and several friends had recently finished a demonstration tape for their fledgling rap group, First Amendment. Their music’s message is for young people to stay away from drugs, Ellis said.

By midday Saturday, several dozen neighbors, along with reporters and television crews, had crowded along Faxina Avenue, watching as investigators worked through the morning collecting evidence.

Just past noon, the Statens’ bodies were taken out and driven away in a coroner’s van.

“They’re the sweetest people you could ever know. They’ve been great neighbors,” said one woman who watched as the bodies, wrapped in brown cloth, were taken away. “They didn’t deserve this.”