5 Killed in Apparent Murder-Suicide

Police in this Silicon Valley suburb spent Sunday continuing to investigate an apparent murder-suicide involving three children, their father and his second wife.

Meanwhile, neighbors wondered how five members of a family they described as sweet and content could now be dead.

If police confirm their murder-suicide theory, the deaths would be the third family slayings in Santa Clara in less than two years. In May, a father killed his son and stepdaughter, then committed suicide several days later. In 2002, a mother killed her husband and two children.

On Saturday afternoon, officers found the bodies of a 12-year-old girl and 10-year-old twin boys, along with their 37-year-old father and their stepmother in a rented, one-story bungalow home, said Sgt. Kurt Clarke.

A relative in Southern California had asked police to go to the home after receiving a letter from the father. Neighbors identified the couple as Todd Vernon and Nadine Nunes Vernon.

Police weren’t talking about the case Sunday, in part because they were trying to notify the mother of the children, who apparently lives in Southern California.

Family friends told reporters that Todd Vernon had lost his job two months before, and was upset over news that his wife might be leaving him.

“He had told me she was deciding to leave him and he was pretty upset about it,” said Jeff Davidson, a family friend. “He was trying to figure out where he was going to go, and if he was going to move back to L.A.”

The children visited their father one weekend each month, neighbors said.

Police have not announced a cause of death. Neighbor James LeDeau said officers asked him whether the man was a hunter, implying that a gun had been used. On Sunday morning, the Santa Clara County medical examiner’s office referred questions to police.

The family’s landlord, Don Soukup, said Todd Vernon had quit his job delivering and installing medical equipment a few months ago -- but the family still paid rent early, as usual. He said Nunes Vernon was a highly paid consultant for software maker Adobe Systems.