Son’s Thanksgiving Visit Ends in His, Father’s Deaths

Sheriff’s deputies discovered the bodies of a father and his adult son inside a Stanton retirement complex in what officials described Friday as a murder-suicide that went undiscovered for nearly a week.

Farouk El-Fayoumi, a 59-year-old retiree, allegedly shot 20-year-old Charles El-Fayoumi with a handgun when the son came to visit during the Thanksgiving weekend, said Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino.

Amormino said none of the retirement home residents had seen or heard anything unusual in the last week. Investigators were still looking for a motive, he said.

The bodies were discovered Thursday evening at the Park Place Retirement Complex on Katella Avenue.

The son had lived with the father at the complex until six months ago, when he moved in with friends in Santa Ana, authorities said.

“The day before Thanksgiving, he told friends he would visit his dad,” Amormino said. “That was the last anyone heard of him.”

Charles El-Fayoumi’s mother, who lives in Brazil, became concerned when her son didn’t telephone for a couple of days.

When he did not show up for a planned trip to Mexico to visit his girlfriend, his friends became concerned too, Amormino said.

The mother asked the friends to go to her ex-husband’s apartment to look for them both.

When they couldn’t get in to the apartment, they alerted the manager of the complex, who found the two bodies, Amormino said.

Detectives recovered a handgun from the scene and are trying to determine whether it was the murder weapon.

Hazel Raulston, a 72-year-old resident who lives down the hall from El-Fayoumi’s apartment, said she was shocked that the bodies laid undiscovered for so many days.

She said it emphasized the need for having someone make daily checks on residents’ well-being.

“It scares me,” Raulston said. “We never knew a thing was wrong.”

Dion and Micha Eudokimoff, who have lived in the 323-apartment retirement home for three years, said residents keep to themselves and that they noticed nothing unusual during the week.

“We’re all shocked,” said Micha Eudokimoff.

“You’re not even safe in a retirement home.”