Daughter Watches Couple Shot to Death; Neighbor Is Arrested

A Sepulveda couple were shot and killed--allegedly by a neighbor firing a rifle from his second-story apartment--as their 8-year-old daughter watched in horror, Los Angeles police said Sunday.

The alleged gunman, Pedro Antonio Pacheco, 23, began firing as the couple waited in their pickup truck to drive out of the gated parking lot of their apartment complex in the 8100 block of Langdon Avenue, Van Nuys Division Sgt. Alfonso Rodriguez said.

Detectives were interviewing witnesses late Sunday and a motive for the shooting had not been established.

“We have to assume there is some sort of dispute between the two families,” Detective Jim Vojtecky told United Press International.

Police identified the victims as Oscar Ernesto Sanchez, 33, and his wife, Coralia Angelica Duran Sanchez, 30. They lived in the same apartment complex as Pacheco, Rodriguez said.

Pacheco was arrested and booked on suspicion of two counts of murder and was being held without bail at the Van Nuys jail, Rodriguez said. Officers recovered a rifle from his apartment, the sergeant said.

It was not immediately known if Pacheco, who lives with his family at the apartment building, was home alone at the time of the shootings. Police said he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

According to Rodriguez, Pacheco shot Oscar Sanchez in the back as he sat in his truck. Realizing they had come under fire, Sanchez’s wife got out of the truck pulling her daughter, Jeymy Sanchez, with her. She was gunned down outside the truck and died at the scene. Oscar Sanchez was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

The girl was not injured in the 12:15 p.m. shooting.

After the shooting, police released the girl and two siblings, 6 and 11, to her mother’s cousin, Rodriguez said.