Argument Between 2 Men at Retirement Home Ends in Death

For a good part of three years, Manuel Garcia and Marion Aspietia both lived on the second floor of the Rosemead Retirement Home in Pico Rivera.

The men, both 59, “weren’t friends and they weren’t enemies,” although like many residents at the home they squabbled now and then, staff members said.

But early Monday morning an argument between Garcia and Aspietia in the second-floor lounge of the home raged out of control, and Garcia shot and stabbed Aspietia to death, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

Deputy Mary Landreth said residents told investigators that at 12:30 a.m. they heard shouting in the lounge. A night supervisor at the home called deputies, who arrived to find Garcia, gun in hand, standing over the dead body of Aspietia. He had been shot and stabbed numerous times, Landreth said.

A handgun and a knife were taken as evidence, Landreth said. Garcia was booked for investigation of murder and is being held without bail.

Sheriff’s deputies and staff members said that they did not know why the two men had been fighting, or where Garcia obtained the weapons.

“When you have 100 people living under the same roof, at their age, with all their mental and physical problems, and with little to look forward to except visits by family members and what the staff does for them, it’s natural for them to have fights,” said retirement home owner Barry Hoffman.

“Manuel and Marion were no different. But Manuel never hurt anybody like this,” Hoffman said. “I’ve never, ever seen anything like this in my whole life. It’s very traumatic.”

Hoffman said that Garcia had “psychological problems,” which he declined to discuss. Staff members described Garcia as a loner.

Aspietia was an alcoholic, Hoffman said. The owner said that he did not know if he had been drinking before the argument but said that “he was always drinking.”

Hours after the shooting, hospital administrators were deluged with calls from concerned relatives of retirement home residents, and some family members dropped by to check on their relatives.

He said that a psychologist would be talking with all residents about the shooting, and that the staff would hold a meeting in a few days to discuss it.

“We will try to make them feel safe somehow,” Hoffman said. “I hope it is going to be OK for all of them.”

Most residents in the middle- to low-income retirement home seemed unfazed by the shooting, and went about their business as usual Monday. A few paused to stare at a bullet hole left in a second-story window, but most seemed more interested in watching an artist paint a Thanksgiving scene on the front door.

One resident said that she was not concerned that the shooting would generate mistrust among the tightly knit community of retirement home residents.

“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Who knows what got into them. I like it here.”