4 dead in Sacramento home; suspect detained

At least two children were among victims found by the police

SACRAMENTO — Police said they found four people dead in a Sacramento home early Thursday, and the mayor’s office said at least two are children.

A suspect likely known to the victims was being held in San Francisco, said Sacramento police spokesman Sgt. Bryce Heinlein.

The four victims were found when police broke into the home after a relative reported that something might be wrong. Police were not immediately identifying the victims, including their genders and ages, Heinlein said.

Kelly Fong Rivas, a deputy chief of staff for Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, said police told officials that two were children but had not provided other details.

Steinberg called the crime horrifying and extremely tragic in a statement praising police for quickly making an arrest.

The single-story beige home with sculpted shrubbery has a basketball hoop set up in a driveway that police blocked off with yellow crime scene tape.

It was unclear when the victims were killed, Heinlein said. Police also weren’t saying how they were killed as the investigation continued in the tree-lined residential neighborhood of neatly maintained homes down the street from a church.

Police were able to quickly identify “a subject of interest,” Heinlein said, and worked with San Francisco police to have that male suspect detained.

“Preliminarily this does not appear to be a random act. We believe the suspect is known to the victims,” Heinlein said.

He would not reveal the relationship of the suspect to the victims and said the suspect had not yet been questioned by investigators.

San Francisco police confirmed they took a suspect into custody about 4 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge but would not give other details.

There were no reports of shots fired or other problems until the relative called to report that he was concerned about the welfare of the home’s residents, Heinlein said. He said he was not aware that any weapon had been recovered.

A few neighbors looked on curiously as homicide detectives and crime scene investigators made their way in and out of the home south of the state Capitol.

Police were interviewing potential witnesses and searching for surveillance cameras as part of what was expected to be a daylong investigation that shut down at least one road, Heinlein said.