Boyfriend Surrenders After Woman, 20, Is Shot to Death

A 20-year-old woman was shot to death in her apartment after arguing with her boyfriend, who later surrendered to police and was arrested on suspicion of murder, investigators said Monday.

Neighbors at an apartment complex in the 1200 block of South Euclid Street heard gunshots about 8:30 p.m. Sunday and called police, who arrived to find Helen Marie Veloz with a gunshot wound to the head, Sgt. Charles Chavez said. Veloz died at the scene.

Her boyfriend, Thomas Rufino Tongpalan, 25, called police moments later from a friend’s house about two blocks away and surrendered to officers, police said. Tongpalan was being held at Anaheim City Jail on Monday in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Veloz had been living at the gated apartment complex with her two daughters for about a year when Tongpalan, an iron worker who recently suffered an on-the-job accident, moved in with her a few months ago, neighbors and relatives said.

“That was my daughter he took from me,” said Veloz’s mother, Maria Veloz. “I’m not able to talk about it right now.”

Veloz’s two daughters, who are “not even old enough to go to school,” are staying with their father, according to relatives. They were not in the apartment when the shooting occurred.

Paul Mancine, apartment maintenance supervisor and one of Veloz’s neighbors, said the pair appeared to be getting along until recently, when Tongpalan began suspecting that there was another man.

“He seemed paranoid,” Mancine said, “He came up to me about 9:30 [a.m.] that day and was asking if I had seen her with other people.”

Detectives said the two had been arguing prior to the shooting, but they did not know the reason for the dispute. It does not appear that police officers previously responded to domestic violence calls at the same address, Chavez said.

“We are still trying to determine a motive,” Chavez said. “Usually when something like this happens, our officers would recognize the place because they’ve been there before. But in this case, it didn’t set off any bells or whistles or anything.”