Family’s deaths called suicide

Orange County Sheriff’s Department homicide investigators have concluded that all five members of a successful family of Turkish immigrants committed suicide earlier this year at their upscale home, but they still have no idea why.

The dead were Manas Ucar, an engineer and former Syracuse University professor; his wife, Margrit, who once owned a Newport Beach jewelry store; their 21-year-old twin daughters, Grace and Margo, who this year earned bachelor’s degrees at UC San Diego; and the twins’ 72-year-old grandmother, Fransuhi Kesisoglu.

An autopsy determined that the young women and their grandmother died from overdoses of prescription medication, including the painkiller Vicodin, and that Margrit Ucar shot her husband in the chest before shooting herself in the head, said Dan Salcedo, a sheriff’s homicide investigator.

The family did not leave a suicide note, and investigators found no indication of financial, medical or marital problems, Salcedo said Wednesday. The twins were found on a bed, their grandmother on a chaise longue and their parents in a closet. Each of the victims was dressed in black.

-- Stuart Pfeifer