LOS ANGELES — A man who fatally shot his wife, five young children and himself Tuesday had earlier faxed a note to a TV station claiming the couple had just been fired from their hospital jobs and together planned the killings as a final escape for the whole family.
“Why leave the children to a stranger?” Ervin Lupoe wrote, according to KABC-TV.
The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch center also received a call from a man who stated, “I just returned home and my whole family’s been shot.”
Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 8:30 a.m., apparently within minutes of the killings. Officers could still smell the gunshot residue in the air.
Although the fax asserted that Ana Lupoe planning the killings of the whole family, police Lt. John Romero said Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.
Ana Lupoe’s body was found in a downstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple’s twin 2-year-old boys. The bodies of an 8-year-old girl and twin 5-year-old girls were found alongside Lupoe’s in an upstairs bedroom.
All were shot in the head, a coroner’s assistant said.
Lupoe removed three of the children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas, the school principal told KCAL-TV. Crescent Heights Elementary School Principal Cherise Pounders-Caver said nothing seemed to be troubling Lupoe at that time; she did not ask why the family was moving.
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles released a statement confirming both Lupoe and his wife worked there; both were medical technicians.
In the letter he faxed to the TV station, Ervin Lupoe claimed he and his wife both had been fired and that she suggested they kill themselves and their children, too.
The letter indicated that Lupoe and his wife had been under investigation for misrepresenting their employment to an outside agency in order to obtain childcare.
He claimed that an administrator told the couple on Dec. 23: “You should not even had bothered to come to work today you should have blown your brains out.”
The couple complained to the human resources department and eventually were offered an apology but two days later the Lupoes were fired, according to the letter.
“They did nothing to the manager who started such and did not attempt to assist us in the matter, knowing we have no job and five children under 8 years old with no place to go. So here we are,” the note said.
At the bottom of the note, Lupoe wrote, “Oh lord, my God, is there no hope for a widow’s son?”
The Kaiser Permanente statement made no comment on the claims in Lupoe’s fax.
It was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year. Police urged those facing tough economic times to get help rather than resort to violence.
“Today our worst fear was realized,” said Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner. “It’s just not a solution. There’s just so many ways you find alternatives to doing something so horrific and drastic as this.”
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