The shooting that left three people dead inside a Lakewood home on Thursday, Jan. 15, was a murder-suicide in which a man killed his wife and teenage daughter before taking his own life, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said on Friday, Jan 16.
Deputies were dispatched at about 8 a.m. to the 5800 block of Lorelei Avenue after receiving a report of an assault with a deadly weapon, the department said. Deputies found a 19-year-old woman who had left the single-story home unharmed and told deputies her father had shot at her.
Inside the house, deputies found Hector Lionel Alfaro, 52, lying on the floor in the den with a gunshot wound to his upper torso. Investigators determined he shot himself.
As deputies continued through the house, they found Alfaro’s 48-year-old wife in a bedroom suffering from gunshot wounds to her torso. In a second bedroom, deputies found the couple’s 17-year-old daughter with a gunshot wound to her upper torso.
Alfaro, his wife and his youngest daughter were pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators learned the 19-year-old daughter, Alfaro’s eldest child, was asleep inside the home when she heard gunshots, authorities said. Alfaro later appeared near her armed with a handgun and fired several shots at her, but she was not struck by the gunfire.
Alfaro fatally shot himself while standing near his eldest daughter, investigators said.
Two firearms were recovered at the scene.