Four Killed, Three Hurt in Rampage at House

A jilted boyfriend who had threatened his girlfriend’s relatives went on a shooting and stabbing rampage Sunday inside a Baldwin Park house, systematically killing two men and two children--sisters age 9 and 12--and leaving three other people badly wounded, investigators said.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Stoneman said detectives were still piecing together details of the afternoon attack in the small brown-and-white, wood-frame home. Of the 10 people at the house at the time, only three escaped unharmed.

The suspect, identified by authorities as David Alvarez, 29, of Highland Park, was facing an arrest warrant for kidnapping and assaulting his girlfriend a month ago, Stoneman said.

Some of the young woman’s relatives had retaliated for her alleged battering, beating up Alvarez, who then set out Sunday to get his revenge, Stoneman said.

Alvarez “made threats to the family for letting her stay there,” Stoneman said.

Neither the ex-girlfriend nor any of the relatives believed to have beaten Alvarez up were at the house Sunday, Stoneman said.

Three of the dead--the girls and a gardener who happened to be working at the house--were gagged, forced to lie face-down on the floor and shot in the head. The girls’ father was critically wounded, but their mother was not harmed. Two boys, ages 2 and 3, cousins to the dead girls, were later found hiding in the house. They were not hurt.

Three of the dead were identified as Massiel Torres, 12, her sister Evelyn, 9, and their uncle, Roberto Diaz, 32. The gardener, who has not been identified, was working in the front yard when the suspect appeared. He was marched at gunpoint into the house and shot to death, officials said.

The girls and the gardener were found gagged and shot in the living room. Roberto Diaz was found dead in another room.

The wounded, who were found on the lawn, were taken to an undisclosed hospital. One victim was listed in critical condition.

Survivors told authorities that the assailant was DAlvarez and that he had come to the home searching for his former girlfriend, Stoneman said. That woman, who had moved in with her relatives in an attempt to keep Alvarez from learning her whereabouts, was away at the time, Stoneman said.

A neighbor who spoke on condition of anonymity said he was working in his garage when he heard a man--later identified as Peter Torres, 49, the father of the dead girls--calling out frantically in broken English.

“Somebody yelled, ‘Help! Help!’ ” the neighbor said. “The guy had blood all over him. He was shot in the neck and the head and the leg, and he came hopping out of the house. He said, ‘My family is in the back. They’ve been shot. Please call for help.’ ”

Then, the neighbor said, a woman with a gunshot wound in her cheek ran out. Her wrists were chafed and reddened with what appeared to be rope burns.

Torres, the neighbor said, was muttering about the suspect, but was hard to understand because he kept slipping in and out of consciousness.

A family gathering on Sunday had brought Roberto Diaz and his family--his wife, Martha, 21, and two young sons--to the small rented house in the 4700 block of Stewart Avenue where the girls lived with their parents, Peter and Patricia, 36, and a maternal aunt, Celia Diaz, 44.

Patricia Torres is the aunt of the suspect’s girlfriend, Stoneman said.

Martha and Celia Diaz were in serious condition with stab wounds, Stoneman said.

The sergeant said police arrived to find the wounded on the front lawn. Inside, among the dead, they found the two small boys cowering unscathed. The boys were placed in protective custody by Baldwin Park police, Stoneman said.

Sheriff’s investigators were still searching Sunday evening for Alvarez. Stoneman said Alvarez had been arrested before on suspicion of murder, but gave no details. A warrant for kidnapping and assault was issued for Alvarez a month ago, after he reportedly battered his girlfriend, Stoneman said.

On the quiet street where the attacks occurred, neighbors expressed shock and grief. Although few had met the occupants of the house, all described them as quiet, seemingly pleasant people.

The sisters, they said, were students at nearby Santa Fe Elementary School. America Gonzalez, a sixth-grader who had seen the elder sister on campus, said she and her mother burst into tears when they realized why their street had filled Sunday afternoon with paramedics and police.

“They were always nice and happy,” said America, 11. “I never saw them sad.”

“They were very good neighbors,” said 43-year-old Consuelo Gomez, who lives down the street. “We’re shocked. How could this happen to them?”