VISALIA, Calif. (AP) — Two weeks after shooters brazenly killed a teen mother, her 10-month-old baby and four other members of her household, the suspects remain at large.
Authorities on Monday provided no motive for the attack in a central California farming community.
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux has yet to describe the shooters publicly or provide any information about what he previously called the “assassination-style” killings, other than to say investigators believe they are gang-related.
Boudreaux did not take questions from reporters during a news conference Monday, his first public remarks since the day after the Jan. 16 shooting in rural Goshen. He also did not address whether anyone at the house was targeted specifically.
The violence in the community of about 3,000 residents in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley was the first of three mass killings in California this month.
It was followed by a Jan. 21 massacre at a dance hall in a Los Angeles suburb that left 11 dead and nine wounded. Police say that gunman later was found dead in a van with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Less than 48 hours after that massacre, shootings at two Half Moon Bay farms on Jan. 23 near San Francisco left seven dead and one wounded. That gunman has been taken into custody and charged with murder and attempted murder.
Authorities have said they were searching for two suspects in the Goshen killings. On Monday they increased a reward offer to more than $20,000 for information leading to their arrests. The previous amount had been $15,000.
Boudreaux said the 16-year-old mom who was killed in Goshen was fleeing the violence in the pre-dawn hours when the killers caught up to her outside the home and shot the young mother and her son. The other four victims ranged from 19 to 72 years old, including a grandmother who was shot as she slept.
The victims have been identified as: Rosa Parraz, 72; Eladio Parraz, Jr., 52; Jennifer Analla, 49; Marcos Parraz, 19; Alissa Parraz, 16; and Nycholas Parraz, 10 months.
The sheriff on Monday said the teen mother had just been awarded full custody of her son after he spent months in the foster care system. The two were reunited on Jan. 13 — three days before they were both killed.
