need to know
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Northern California police find four dead, including two children, after responding to 911 call from suspect
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The suspect called 911 to report he had fired a gun and told police he had set “booby traps” around the house
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The victims have not yet been identified, but police said neighbors told them a family of four lived in the house
Police in Northern California made a gruesome discovery Tuesday morning when they found a man, a woman and two children dead in a house after receiving a 911 call from a gunman who said the home was riddled with “booby traps.”
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office officials described the scene at a Rancho Cordova home as a murder-suicide and said late Tuesday that the man found dead was believed to be responsible for the deaths of three other people, according to local reports from SFGate, KCRA and CBS News Sacramento.
this sacramento bees The four victims were later identified as a family of four who lived in the house: David Edward Vallerga Jr., 58, Lindsey Peralta Vallerga, 49, and the couple’s 13-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.
KCRA reported that police initially received a 911 call around 8:30 a.m. reporting a shooting in the area. Citing police, the outlet reported that another 911 call came from Vallerga Jr., who allegedly identified himself as the shooter and warned police he had set traps around the house.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Edward Igoe told KCRA that responding officers then launched a drone “which entered the residence and located a male subject inside the residence who appeared to be unresponsive.”
Igoe told KCRA that police later entered the home and found the woman and two children dead.
“It’s always difficult,” Ego said, according to KCRA. “It’s always extremely difficult to respond to something of this magnitude. Honestly, as an agency, we’re just praying with the friends and family of the individuals involved today.”
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“As an agency, as people, as fathers, we are looking out for each other and looking out for each other during this very difficult time,” the county sheriff’s spokesman added in an interview with CBS.
The couple runs two tutoring businesses from home, sacramento bees reported. According to police, CBS reported that the family had no previous history of domestic violence.
A KCRA reporter stationed outside the home cited curious and concerned neighbors as saying the murder-suicide was unexpected in the neighborhood.
“It’s pretty quiet here most of the time,” neighbor Cameron Daughtry told KCRA. “You’ll see people walking their dogs, running. For the most part, we don’t have any loud parties or anything like that here. It’s pretty quiet. Everybody’s friendly and peaceful. So to see that, it’s crazy.”
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit thehotline.org. All calls are free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
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