HEMET, Calif. – Law enforcement authorities in the Inland Empire of Southern California say a dispute over a rental agreement led a 20-year-old woman and her 18-year-old boyfriend to viciously kill three people.
“This is a tragic, horrific incident,” Hemet Police Chief Eddie Pust told a news conference Friday.
He said the murders occurred Wednesday in a home belonging to one of the victims, Wendy Lopez-Araiza, 46.
Moreover, her daughter Genesis Lopez-Araiza, 21, and Trinity Clyde, 18, were also murdered, Fox 11 Los Angeles reported.
According to the chief, the victims had been bludgeoned and strangled.
Another member of the Lopez-Araiza family, the oldest son, was in another part of the house as the murders were taking place, but didn’t know what was happening, he said.
Police were called after Genesis was found covered in blood by her father when he came home from work, the chief said.
As he entered the house, Guzman and McCloud ran out made their getaway by taking Clyde’s car, Fox 11 reported.
Following the brutal homicides the suspects fled several hours away to Las Vegas, where they were tracked down and arrested, Pust said. The two have been identified as Jordan Guzman, 20, and Anthony McCloud, 18.
The apparent motivation for the vicious attacks stemmed from a rental dispute involving Guzman, who was a tenant in the house.
Rodney Clyde told a local TV station his daughter, Trinity, had planned to rent a room in the Lopez-Araiza house, Fox reported.
“I just bought her paint yesterday,” he said. “That was my baby. That was my kid.”
