Baby-Sitting Couple Found Shot to Death : Crime: Placentia man, wife are discovered by paramedics in an apparent murder-suicide, police say. Four children left in their care are unhurt.

A Placentia couple who were baby-sitting an infant and three toddlers were found shot to death in their home Monday morning in what police called an apparent murder-suicide.

When paramedics arrived at the yellow, wood-frame house at 131 W. Center St. at 11:26 a.m., they found the four children unhurt and wandering inside the home and the bodies of Valente Perez Gonzalez, 48, and Maria Fermino Rubalcava Gonzalez, 45, on the kitchen floor. A small-caliber handgun was on the floor near the bodies, said Corrinne Loomis, a spokeswoman for the Placentia Police Department.

Police said it appeared that Valente Gonzalez shot his wife in the head and then himself in the head, Loomis said.

A daughter-in-law of the couple who asked not to be identified said she and her husband live with the Gonzalezes and that her husband discovered his parents’ bodies. She said that when her husband called the home to ask his mother a question, the 3-year-old answered the phone and managed to explain the situation.

“We all feel very bad,” the daughter-in-law said, sobbing. “He shot her and then he shot himself. We don’t know why.”

Loomis said investigators estimated that the shootings occurred between 10 and 10:30 a.m. No suicide note was found, Loomis said.

Two of the dozen grieving family members who gathered at the residence Monday afternoon exchanging food, drinks and sympathy said they were dumbfounded by the slayings.

“This was a shock. Nobody knows if they were fighting,” said Pablo Gonzalez, a cousin of the dead man. “We are still not sure what happened. The police probably know more than we do. It’s sad.”

Family members said Valente Gonzalez was a janitor who worked off and on but was unemployed at the time. Maria Gonzalez did not work outside the home, Loomis said.

The four children were identified only as a 2-year-old who was the dead couple’s grandchild, a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old and a 6-month-old. After the slayings, all of the children were taken to various members of the couple’s extended family, Loomis said.

The couple had two sons and two daughters between the ages of 13 and 28, Loomis said. None was at the home at the time of the shootings.

Paramedics were dispatched to the home first after an unidentified female caller asked for an ambulance, Loomis said. Paramedics called for police.

The owner of the home, Reina Offield of Yorba Linda, said the couple had lived there a long time and were “very nice people.” She said she knew both of them by the name of Perez.

“I’m shocked,” Offield said.