Two Women, Infant Slain at Santee Home : Crime: Man sought in case is later found dead by SWAT officers in El Cajon apartment.

Two women and a 3-month-old baby were shot to death Tuesday in Santee, and a suspect was later found dead in El Cajon with a gunshot wound in his head, police said.

Deputies were called to a house at 10404 Park Ave. in Santee at 4 p.m. by neighbors who reported hearing gunshots, said Victoria Reden, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman.

The body of one woman was found in the front yard. Inside the house, deputies discovered the slain baby and a wounded woman. She was flown by a Life Flight helicopter to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where she died at 4:46 p.m.

Investigators were unsure of the victims’ identities or the sex of the baby.

Neighbors told deputies of seeing a man carrying a rifle drive off in a blue compact car after hearing the gunfire, Reden said. Deputies were given the car’s license number, and it was quickly traced to an apartment in El Cajon.

The vehicle was spotted near the apartment, and a SWAT team from the El Cajon Police Department surrounded the complex. The Sheriff’s Department did not release the address of the apartment.

Reden said that SWAT officers entered the suspect’s apartment unit and found him dead. It was not immediately determined if the man, whose identity was not released, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

As of late Tuesday night, investigators still had not entered the house where the three people were killed, Reden said.

Reden said investigators were attempting to determine who lived at the house and the relationship of the dead women and infant to the suspected gunman. They were also attempting to establish a motive.

She said she did not know if there were any signs of criminal activity inside the house.

The shootings rocked the quiet neighborhood of well-tended, single-family homes where the victims lived. Neighbors said they knew little about the women.

Some residents said the victims had lived on Park Avenue only two years, but others said they had lived in the house for as many as five years.

Residents described the victims as outsiders in a tightly knit block where everybody knows each other.

“They were pretty isolated. They kept to themselves. I don’t even know how many people lived there,” said a teen-age boy who lives across the street.

“There always seemed to be quite a few people there. They’ve been there for two or three years,” said Gelene Harritt, a neighbor.

The scene of the shootings is only a few blocks from the Las Colinas Jail.