TRAGEDY

Sacked dad kills wife and five kids



A man who shot his wife and five young children before turning the gun on himself faxed a suicide note to a US TV station just moments before the tragedy. Skip related content
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In the note, Ervin Lupoe claimed to have planned the shootings with his wife in a suicide pact because they had just been sacked.

"Why leave our children in someone else's hands," Lupoe said in the letter.

The letter also claimed that an administrator at the hospital where the couple worked said last month "you should not even had bothered to come to work today you should have blown your brains out" when it emerged they were wrongly claiming childcare benefits.

"They did nothing to the manager who stated such and did not attempt to assist us in the matter, knowing we have no job and five children under eight years with no place to go. So here we are," the note said.

The station called police after receiving the fax and the emergency services had also received a call from a man who said: "I just returned home and my whole family's been shot."

Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, Los Angeles, within minutes of the killings and found Ana Lupoe's body in an upstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple's twin two-year-old boys.

The bodies of an eight-year-old girl and twin five-year-old girls were found alongside Ervin Lupoe's in another bedroom. All had been shot in the head.

Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner from the Los Angeles Police said: "In the note he talked about his issues with his employer, job situation. We're not clear exactly where that is.

"We're talking to his employer right now and in the note he clearly said he was going to kill himself, his wife and his kids."

The Kaiser Permanente hospital released a statement made no comment on the claims in Lupoe's fax.