6 Found Slain in Rural Home

A Riverside County investigator and five members of his family, including three children, were found shot to death inside their luxury home southeast of Idyllwild early Tuesday, with all but the investigator apparently killed in their beds, authorities said.

Riverside County sheriff’s deputies rushed to the scene after receiving a predawn 911 call from the home, located in the pine-covered San Bernardino National Forest. Dispatchers heard only heavy breathing and sighs, then a phone slamming against a wall, and finally a single gunshot, authorities said.

Deputies found district attorney’s investigator David J. McGowan dead near the home’s front door, with a handgun and an off-the-hook telephone nearby. All the victims were shot in the head.

Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle said a murder-suicide was a possibility but that investigators were not yet certain.

The other five victims were found in “undisturbed beds,” Doyle said. The McGowan children -- Chase, 14, Paige, 10, and Rayne, 8 -- were found in their bedrooms on the first floor, he said. A woman believed to be McGowan’s wife, Karen, and her mother were in a bedroom on the second floor.

“The sheets were not tussled or rustled; there was no sign of them being surprised,” Doyle said. “It looked like they were all sleeping.”

Investigators also found “no signs of a struggle or domestic violence. The doors and windows were secured,” he said. “The house was undisturbed.” He said two handguns were also found in the kitchen.

“Certainly, as you look at the situations of the gun and the phone being within two to three feet of [David McGowan], you can’t exclude this from being a homicide-suicide,” Doyle said. But the sheriff said it was still too early to draw conclusions.

Word of the deaths sent shock waves throughout this wealthy, close-knit community of equestrian enthusiasts, retirees and transplants from Los Angeles. To those neighbors who frequently saw the couple remodeling their home on Devils Ladder Road or their children bouncing on a large trampoline on the lawn, the McGowans were the quintessential “all-American” family.

“Everyone I’ve talked to that knows them says there is no way, that’s not even a possibility” that this is a murder-suicide, said resident Drew Pilatte. “It just breaks my heart.”

The McGowan home is in Garner Valley, a remote community of rolling horse pastures, gated equestrian estates and pine-studded mountains, about 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Many of the residents know one another by meeting at Garner Valley’s post office and cafe, two of the few businesses that operate there.

“We’re a very high-end horse community and mountain community. Lots of wealth, lots of people who moved from the rat race of L.A.,” said resident Karen Price. “We’re still kind of in shock.... I mean, we don’t lock our doors, and we have $2-million homes. This can’t happen here.”

At Hamilton School in Anza, classmates of the three dead children broke down in tears while others left school early after they were informed of the deaths by counselors.

“My stomach fell,” said Kevin Walker, 14, an eighth-grader at the school and classmate of Chase. Walker was among the students who were brought to the library to be told of the deaths. “I was filled with sadness and anger. My body went numb.”

At the school, where the McGowan children were in the second, fourth and eighth grades, administrators sent a note home to parents informing them of the deaths.

“We will miss the children greatly,” part of the note read. “Your children should know that the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is actively investigating and that they have no need to worry.”

As students left the school, they described Chase as a nice, cheerful student who was active in the band and Little League. They and others said that the McGowans had a fourth son who had graduated from high school in 2001 and was serving in Iraq. They said Chase was planning to have a paintball war with his brother and friends when he returned home.

“Chase never argued or fought with anyone,” said Marc Manning, 14. “He was just a nice kid.”

Robert Lynn, 13, agreed. “He always seemed so happy,” Lynn said. “It seems so tragic that someone so coldhearted could do something like that to a family.”

David McGowan, who turned 44 on Sunday, had worked as a district attorney investigator for five years and served as a police officer in Cathedral City for 14 years before that.

Riverside County district attorney’s spokeswoman Ingrid Wyatt said McGowan’s supervisors had reported there was nothing obvious in the investigator’s workload that would indicate “something like this would happen.”

“This is a shock to our office; a tragedy for the family and the employees of the district attorney’s office,” Wyatt said. “The investigators who are here have lost a friend. They’re watching the Sheriff’s Department investigate one of their own, and three kids are dead. It’s been a very tough day.”

Karen McGowan, 42, had worked as a firefighter in Cathedral City before quitting to raise the couple’s children. She was often seen working on the couple’s property, doing cement and electrical work, and had spent the last two summers cutting down beetle-infested pine trees for neighbors who could not afford to remove the fire hazards.

“She was tough,” said Pat Whittle, who knew the couple through a homeowners association. “She had a little side business cutting trees -- think she called it Sawbucks.”

Felipe Galindo, a friend who maintains the home and ranch across the street from the McGowans, described Karen McGowan as a hard worker who cared deeply about her neighborhood. Galindo often helped her with projects.

“We’d work from 7 or 8 in the morning to 4 or 5 in the afternoon. She was amazing,” said Galindo, who would help her on Saturdays. “Even I was tired, but she just kept working and working.”

Children and neighbors said that the girls were active and enjoyed sports.

Kathleen Hogue, 12, said she was friends with Paige and that “she was not a girly-girl. She was more like a sports person. We would always play sports. Baseball, football and stuff like that.”

Galindo said he often saw Paige and Rayne jumping on a trampoline outside the house while Chase pedaled around on a dirt bike.

Paige, who raised chickens, often asked Galindo to buy eggs from her, charging $1.50 a dozen. On Easter, Rayne gave a chocolate bunny to Galindo.

“The little girls, they were really sweet,” Galindo said.

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Times staff writers Patricia Ward Biederman, Rong-Gong Lin II, Seema Mehta, Ashley Powers, Susannah Rosenblatt and Veronica Torrejon contributed to this report.