Deputies Find 4 Dead in Luxury Home

Sheriff’s deputies entered a posh home here Thursday night and found four people dead after a neighbor reported not having seen them for two days, investigators said.

The apparent murder victims lived in the 5100 block of Avenida Maravillas, near the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, where four-acre sites, spaced roughly a mile apart, sell for more than $2 million each, a spokesman for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said.

The names of the victims had not been released late Thursday, and homicide investigators had not determined whether the victims had been murdered, “although that appears to be the case,” the spokesman said.

A neighbor who lives on the street telephoned sheriff’s deputies shortly after 7 p.m., the spokesman said, and asked them to investigate. Deputies forced their way in and found four people dead.

“This is really big,” said the woman who called the Sheriff’s Department. She asked not to be identified. “Nothing like this has ever happened around here. None of us wants to talk about it. It’s horrible.”

A man who lives about a mile away, who also asked that he remain anonymous, said he had lived in the area a year and a half and did not know the victims’ names.

“We all live pretty far apart,” he said, “and most of us keep to ourselves. I didn’t know them, nor do I know anyone who did. But sheriff’s deputies are all over the place trying to find out what happened. It’s grim.”

A spokesman for the San Diego County medical examiner said late Thursday: “We know only there are four victims. We don’t know how they died, or why. Four people, all in one house. That’s all we know for now.”