Police: Suspect is dead in Calif. shooting of 5
Oct 24, 2012, 3:54 AM
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) – A man found dead at the property where five members of a Southern California family were shot, including two fatally, was the neighbor suspected in the shooting, police said Tuesday.
Desmond John Moses, 55, was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head, holding a handgun and wearing body armor, police said in a statement. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office identified his body after an autopsy.
Moses set his backyard bungalow ablaze early Saturday before spraying bullets at the family who lived in the front house because he blamed them for an eviction notice he had received from their landlord, police said.
Investigators believe Moses entered the family’s home around 4 a.m. wearing a dark cap and a white painter’s mask.
Filimon Lamas, the father of the family, was fatally shot while shielding three of his children, and his 4-year-old son also died, police Chief Mark Fronterotta said.
Gloria Jiminez, the 28-year-old mother, was shot in both legs but managed to carry her son out of the house.
Paramedics found Jimenez collapsed on the street. The child, who had bullet wounds to his head, later died at a hospital.
Authorities said Moses fired 10 times, also wounding a 7-year-old girl in the chest and a 6-year-old boy in the pelvis. An 8-year-old boy escaped injury.
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