Pair in slayings newly divorced

Police: Ex-wife among four killed in Calif. rampage

LOS ANGELES — A gunman in Southern California fatally shot his ex-wife and a man at a trucking company before chasing after another man, killing him, and then driving to a home where he shot and killed a father and daughter, authorities said Thursday.

Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood identified the killer as Javier Casarez during a news conference about the Bakersfield shootings.

After the nearly 40-minute rampage, Casarez, 54, fatally shot himself as a deputy closed in.

Youngblood said Casarez was a legal permanent resident of the

U.S. and that it wasn’t immediately known whether he legally owned the .50-caliber gun used in the shootings or whether he had a criminal record.

Court records show a divorce between Casarez and his wife, Petra Maribel Bolanos de Casarez, was finalized in April.

Bolanos recently filed for a change involving child support and custody over the couple’s two teenage children, and the pair had a hearing set for Oct. 11, court records show.

Youngblood said it appears that Casarez targeted every victim, starting with a worker at T&T Trucking, and that domestic violence likely played a large part.

“It appears to be there’s more than just husband and wife having a fight because other people were targeted,” he said. “There’s a reason for that, and we need to find that reason.”

According to the sheriff ’s department, Casarez likely took his ex-wife to the trucking company against her will, then fatally shot 50-year-old Manuel Contreras with a .50-caliber handgun. He shot his ex-wife and then turned the gun on a second man, 50-year-old Antonio Valadez.

Casarez fired at Valadez as he ran away, tracked him down in his car and killed him. officials said.

Casarez then drove to the house of 57-year-old Eliseo Garcia Cazares, a friend, according to the sheriff ’s department. Casarez fatally shot Garcia and his daughter, 31-year-old Laura Garcia.

“She may have tried to intervene to keep the suspect from approaching her father, and he shot and killed both of them,” Youngblood said.

After the shooting at the Garcia home, Casarez carjacked a woman driving with her child. The woman and child escaped, and Casarez drove to a highway where a sheriff ’s deputy saw him, Youngblood said.

As the deputy closed in, yelling at Casarez to drop his gun, Casarez fatally shot himself in the stomach, according to graphic body camera footage released by police on Facebook.

About 30 witnesses were being interviewed by deputies, Youngblood said.

He said investigators are looking into whether Casarez’s ex-wife had relationships with Contreras or Valadez.