3 Found Shot to Death in Valley Home

Three people, the victims of an apparent murder-suicide, were found shot to death Tuesday inside their home in the gated community of Porter Ranch in the northwestern San Fernando Valley, police said.

The dead included a retired aerospace worker; his wife, who worked as a computer programmer; and their teenage son, according to neighbors, who said the couple had been having financial problems and were on the brink of divorce.

Authorities declined to identify the victims until relatives had been notified. But neighbors said they were John and Nancy An and their son, Franklin, 15. They had lived in the upscale tract development about four years.

The bodies were discovered Tuesday afternoon by firefighters who were contacted by a private security guard dispatched to the home by concerned neighbors. The woman and teenager were found in the living room of the home in the 12000 block of Stone Gate Way, while the man was found in an upstairs bedroom with a handgun nearby, according to Los Angeles Police Det. Marshall White.

A handful of neighbors gathered at the scene said the couple’s troubles in recent months had been increasingly apparent. They had loud arguments and Nancy An had confided to at least one neighbor that she was planning to divorce her husband and was afraid of him.

“[She] told me her husband has a gun, so ‘I have to be careful,’ ” the neighbor, Lee-yea Chung, said.

Shortly after that conversation, about six months ago, John An moved out but began visiting in the evenings, Chung said.

In the last week, An complained that her husband was not helping with the $1,800-a-month mortgage, according to Chung.

The neighbors’ mounting concerns peaked Tuesday morning when Chung noticed burned Chinese currency littering the lawn between her home and the Ans’. Burned money is often offered as a sacrifice to dead ancestors, and is a common mourning ritual among some Buddhists, she added.

Later Tuesday morning, Chung noticed Nancy An’s car idling in the driveway, rang the doorbell and got no answer. Her husband then called the security force, which later summoned officials.