Three men and an elderly woman were also shot dead on the property in Tulare County, California. According to emergency services, one of the men was still alive when they arrived and died in hospital. Due to the speed and viciousness of the attack, the authorities assumed that these were not petty criminals, but professional killers. “I think it has to do directly with the cartel,” Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told the Los Angeles Times. The suspicion has not yet been confirmed, but the act has the appearance of a “cartel-style execution”, CNN said, quoting the sheriff.
According to the Los Angeles Times, two women survived the attack – they were hiding in a trailer at the scene. His statements and surveillance camera recordings gave authorities initial information about the course of the crime. In this way, those present would have seen with the monitoring camera how two men invaded the property in the early hours of Monday. “But by the time they were filmed, it was too late to do anything,” witnesses said according to Boudreaux. Then, one by one, the deadly shots were fired. Police received 911 calls from neighbors about the ongoing shooting. After the homicides, the perpetrators of the crime would probably have shot at those fleeing, the sheriff explained the numerous shots – “basically a hunt”.
The first officers on the scene were presented with a dire picture. The door to the house had been broken into, a man lay dead in the hallway and the police found two other men in the street in front of the property. One of them was so disfigured by injuries to his face that a DNA test was needed to establish his identity. The elderly woman had been killed in her bed, apparently while she was sleeping. The bodies of the mother and child were in a ditch not far from the house, the baby held tightly in the dead man’s arms, Sheriff Boudreaux said. The young woman probably tried to run away from the attackers. According to police, several of the victims belonged to the same family.
The search continues for at least two fugitive suspects, presumably with gang and drug ties. Investigators are investigating a possible connection to a search of the house a week ago that led to an arrest and seizure of firearms, marijuana and methamphetamine.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the city of Goshen has about 5,000 residents, most with Latin American roots. Although – or perhaps because – only half a million people live in Tulare County’s farming district, it plays a major role in smuggling drugs from Mexico into the United States. The area has been a haven for smugglers since at least the 1970s. One of the top bosses of Mexico’s notorious Zeta cartel, the now-imprisoned José Maria Guizar Valencia, hails from Tulare. According to a State Department document, he was responsible for smuggling thousands of pounds of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States each year.
District Superintendent Eddie Valero called the brutal murder of six people “everyone’s worst nightmare”. Such senseless acts of violence, especially against babies, children and young people, have no place in the community, he explained.