LOS ANGELES (AP) – The wife away from the man she allegedly shot in an Southern California office building earlier this week that left four people dead, including a nine-year-old boy, said Saturday she could not understand why her husband was targeting people who they had been treated as a family for over a decade.
Police say the suspect, Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, had approached the mobile home brokerage company, Unified Homes, and had personal and business relationships with the victims. His wife, Aleyda Mendoza, had worked in the Orange County business for more than ten years as an intermediary assistant.
Mendoza, in a text message to The Associated Press, said she and Gaxiola have been separated for two years and “never told me anything about where she was staying or what she was doing.”
“I can’t understand what went through his mind to make such a terrifying decision,” Mendoza wrote. “He left behind a sea of pain and sorrow for so many families who find no consolation.”
Gaxiola, 44, was charged with four counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder for shooting at two officers who were not hit and critically injuring the boy’s mother, authorities said. . His lawsuit is scheduled for Monday. Police have not yet revealed their motive.
The shooting in the city or Orange, southeast of Los Angeles, was the nation’s third largest mass shooting in just over two weeks. The remaining shootings – in Colorado and Georgia – caused 18 deaths.
Authorities identified the people killed in the attack in California as Luis Tovar, 50, owner of Unified Homes; Leticia Solis Guzman, 58; and Jenevieve Raygoza, 28, and her brother, Matthew Farias, 9.
Mendoza said the people at Unified Homes “always supported me” and their children.
“Unified Homes was my home for over ten years and they were my family,” he wrote. “There I learned everything I know and they shaped who I am today.”
Matthew was usually in daycare after school, but on Wednesday afternoon he was with his mother, Blanca Tamayo, who worked at Unified Homes. He was the only person shot who survived. When police arrived, Tamayo was cradling her dead son.
Tovar had a previous relationship with Tamayo and they were Raygoza’s parents.
Mendoza said now and his children fear for their lives because they have received threatening calls since the shooting.
“My heart is crushed, I still can’t accept this happening,” he wrote. “I keep closing my eyes and praying to God that all this is just a bad dream and I will wake up soon.”
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Taxis were reported from Orange County.