Assailant Kills 2 Women, Self in O.C. Rampage

A man enraged by domestic problems went on a violent rampage Sunday afternoon, killing two women and seriously injuring another, then killing himself, because they apparently would not, or could not, tell him where to find the woman he was seeking, police said.

After shooting and killing the last victim in front of her two young sons, the 26-year-old man turned the gun on himself and died on her bedroom floor.

The victim’s 5-year-old son then led his 3-year-old brother to a neighbor’s apartment.

“Julio came here and hugged me and said, ‘My mommy has died. My uncle killed her,’ ” said a weeping Eugenia Nava, who lives above the family.

One stabbing victim, Guadalupe S. Villareal, 18, was in fair condition Sunday night at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

The man’s domestic problem spread tragedy throughout a family, police said. Two of the victims are related, Police Sgt. Joe Vargas said, but detectives did not know Sunday evening exactly how. Neighbors said they believe that two of the victims were sisters of the woman the killer sought.

Neighbors also said the man apparently had been searching for his wife or girlfriend for several days, and he flew into a rage when the women did not tell him where to find her.

The chilling sequence of events began about 1 p.m. when the man, who was not identified but is believed to be a Los Angeles resident, showed up at an Anaheim apartment complex in the 300 block of North Brookhurst Street and confronted two women.

Neighbors said they heard shouts from the apartment and looked up to see people rushing out. Inside, police found the two women bleeding from stab wounds. Villareal was severely injured, and an unidentified 23-year-old woman was dead on arrival at Martin Luther Hospital.

Six minutes after police entered the apartment, they received a report of a shooting several blocks away.

There, at an apartment complex in the 1200 block of North Dresden Street, police found the man and Marlene Guzman, 36, both dead from gunshot wounds.

Neighbors had frequently seen the man’s blue Honda hatchback parked outside the complex in recent days and had watched him peer into the Guzmans’ windows, “like he was looking for something,” said Helen Carrillo, the apartment manager.

Carrillo said she was in the garage when she heard popping sounds. First came three in rapid succession, then two more.

“I didn’t even think they were gunshots,” she said. “It sounded like kids playing. Then another tenant passed by and said, ‘That’s gunfire.’ ”

Police struggled to make sense of the violence Sunday night. Detectives took anyone who appeared to be a witness to the police station for statements.

“We don’t know if it’s a wife or girlfriend involved,” Vargas said, but it appears both Villareal and Guzman “have some blood relationship.”

“It just appears right now to be the result of a domestic dispute.”

Vargas said the unidentified stabbing victim did not appear to be related to the other women.

He said police were sent to an address in Los Angeles to check for other victims, but it was not known Sunday night what they had found.

The violence shocked friends and neighbors at both locations.

Ray Harb, 55, the proprietor of the Mercado Calimex near the Brookhurst complex, said that about 1:15 p.m. he saw a bunch of people running from Villareal’s apartment.

Harb said Villareal frequently bought groceries from him. “She’s a beautiful young lady, not the type that would bother people,” he said.

Guzman lived in a tree-lined north Anaheim neighborhood of small homes and apartment buildings.

“I feel so bad,” Nava said, covering her face as she wept softly on her living room couch. “She was like a sister to me. When I first arrived here, she was so kind. We always got along.

“She was very friendly, always happy,” Nava said. “She never had problems with anyone. She was my only friend here.”

Nava, the mother of four girls, and Guzman would watch each other’s children.

“They were a quiet family,” said Carrillo, the apartment manager. Guzman and her husband, Julio Guzman Sr., natives of Chiapas, Mexico, had lived there for about five years with their sons, Julio and Bryan.

Julio Guzman Sr. was away at the time of the shooting, but he arrived home minutes later.

“He seemed dazed,” Carrillo said.

Neighbors gathered outside the Guzman apartment, placing a cluster of lighted candles near the family’s door.

Residents said the neighborhood has had its share of drug and gang problems, but those had subsided in recent years.

“It’s pretty quiet around here,” Maria Ordiz said. “We’ve never had anything like this happen.