Family of 4 Found Shot to Death in Their Home

A La Puente woman apparently distraught over financial problems shot and killed her two small children and their father before turning the gun on herself, authorities said Thursday.

The victims appeared to have been dead for several days, police said.

A relative found the bodies at the house in the 500 block of Broadmoor Avenue at 1:10 p.m., said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Washington.

Police identified the adults as Alejandro Gil, 28, and Sylvia Martinez, 25, and the children as Abigail, 6, and Alex, 3.

Neighbors told authorities that they heard gunshots in the neat, single-story house Sunday, but they ignored the noise and did not alert police.

“Apparently there were financial problems with the family . . and the lady had been very depressed,” Sheriff’s Lt. R. David Dietrich Dietrich said.

Next-door neighbor Salvador Higuera Jr. 18, said he had heard the couple fighting nearly every night, usually after midnight.

The children were found on a bed in their pajamas, each shot once in the upper torso, Dietrich said. They could have been sleeping when they were shot, he said.

The bodies of Gil and Martinez were found in another bedroom, he said. A semiautomatic handgun was found nearby, authorities said.

“The house is reasonably maintained,” Dietrich said. “There doesn’t appear to be any ransacking.”

Concerns about the family’s whereabouts were raised by officials of Temple Academy, the school that Abigail attended. She was at school last Friday. But when she failed to show up this week, school officials’ phone calls to the family’s home went unanswered. Officials then phoned a relative.

It was the third quadruple slaying in Los Angeles County this month. The other cases involved groups of men who were shot to death at businesses in Compton. Authorities were investigating whether those killings were drug-related.

Also this month, four people were shot, three of them fatally, in Ontario in San Bernardino County.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.