Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Police arrested a 56-year-old man who works for the state Friday on suspicion that he killed two adults and two children in a quiet Northern California neighborhood.
Authorities did not release the names of the victims, but friends and relatives of a young family that lived in the Sacramento house feared the worst.
Rita Munoz, who lives in the neighborhood, said her grandchildren played with an 11-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl who lived with their mother in the house. Munoz said her neighbor's mother arrived at the house shortly after the bodies were found Thursday and was heard crying "Oh my gosh, my only baby. My grandbabies are all gone," after she learned what happened.
Later Munoz said she overheard the woman say: "I told her not to go back to him."
Sacramento police declined to discuss the suspect's relationship with the victims and said they haven't determined a motive.
"It's a horrible thing," Munoz said.
Police originally detained Salvador Vasquez-Oliva in San Francisco about 90 miles (145 kilometers) away on Thursday afternoon and formally arrested him Friday morning.
He was being held in the Sacramento County Jail, police spokesman Sgt. Bryce Heinlein said.
The four victims were discovered Thursday morning when police broke into the home after a relative reported that something might be wrong.
Vasquez-Oliva was quickly singled out by investigators on Thursday. Police said he is from Sacramento, but records show he is also is associated with an apartment near the University of San Francisco, six blocks from where police found him. The building is in a nice neighborhood, but is worn and run down. There was no answer at the door, though a light remained on inside.
The California Employment Development Department, which administers the state's unemployment checks, said it has employed Vasquez-Oliva as an office technician since 2014.
The single-story beige home with sculpted shrubbery where the bodies were found has a basketball hoop in a driveway that police blocked with yellow crime scene tape. It's located in a tree-lined residential neighborhood of neatly maintained homes near a church.
Police have not said when or how the victims were killed.
___
Associated Press writers Kristin J. Bender and Amanda Lee Myers also contributed to this report. Elias and Bender contributed from San Francisco, and Myers contributed from Los Angeles.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
