Family of Four Found Dead in Santa Clara

Police discovered a family of four dead in their upscale Santa Clara, Calif., home Thursday in an apparent murder-suicide.

“It was a horrific scene,” said Santa Clara Police Detective Kurt Clarke. “It’s awful.”

The detective would not reveal how the 42-year-old man, 38-year-old woman and their two daughters, ages 4 and 12, had died--or who among them is believed to have done the killing.

Police were summoned to the scene shortly after noon. The father’s boss, worried because the man had not shown up at work for several days, went by his house to check on him. The father worked in the high-tech industry, police said.

After knocking on the front door, the boss walked around to the back of the house, where he peered in the window and saw a body.

He called 911, and when police came, they found three more bodies. They are notifying the next of kin, Clarke said.

These are the first homicides in Santa Clara this year, police said. The city with 102,000 population is between Palo Alto and San Jose.

Neighbor Manny Deoliveira said there was nothing unusual about the family, whose names have not been released, but he had heard the couple had marital problems.

“There were no signs of violence,” he said, adding the couple had attended neighborhood watch meetings during the past year.