LOS ANGELES (AP) — A shooter stood over a 16-year-old mother clutching her 10-month-old baby and pumped bullets into their heads in a brazen attack in a central California farming community that left six dead at a home linked to drugs and guns, a sheriff said Tuesday.

Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said the teenager was fleeing the violence early Monday when the killers caught up to her outside the home in Goshen, a central California community of about 3,000 residents in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, and shot the young mother and her child “assassination-style.”

The other four victims ranged from 19 to 72 years old, including a grandmother who was shot as she slept. Their autopsies are expected to be completed later in the week.

Authorities said they were searching for two suspects and offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to their arrests.

“None of this was by accident,” Boudreaux said during a news conference Tuesday. “It was deliberate, intentional and horrific.”

Boudreaux walked back his earlier comments to reporters that the attack was likely a cartel hit, saying that investigators are also looking into whether it was gang violence.

“I am not eliminating that possibility,” the sheriff said. “These people were clearly shot in the head and they were also shot in places where the shooter would know that a quick death would occur … This is also similar to high-ranking gang affiliation and the style of executions that they commit.”

Law enforcement is familiar with the home, the sheriff said, citing gang activity there that “has routinely occurred in the past” without giving any specifics. He added that not everyone who was shot was a drug dealer or gang member — and said that among the victims believed to be innocent are the teen, her grandmother, and of course, the baby.

The sheriff’s department on Tuesday identified the victims as: Rosa Parraz, 72; Eladio Parraz, Jr., 52; Jennifer Analla, 49; Marcos Parraz, 19; Alissa Parraz, 16; and Nycholas Parraz, 10 months.

Boudreaux said “there was no reason” for the shooters to kill the young mother and her child.

“I know for a fact this 10-month-old baby was relying on the comfort of his mother. There was no reason for them to shoot that baby, but they did,” he said.

Samuel Pina said Alissa was his granddaughter and the baby, Nycholas, was his great-grandson.

“I can’t wrap my head around what kind of monster would do this,” he told The Associated Press on Monday.

Pina said Parraz and her baby were living with her father’s side of the family in Goshen, and that her dad’s uncle, her dad’s cousin, her grandmother and her great-grandmother were also killed.

He said the family is in shock.

“It comes in big waves,” he said.

Authorities received a call at 3:38 a.m. Monday about multiple shots being fired — so many that it initially seemed like an active shooter situation — at the residence in the town of Goshen, some 170 miles (273.59 kilometers) south of downtown Los Angeles.

It was later determined the person who made the call was someone hiding at the property. Deputies arrived seven minutes later and found two bodies outside the home in the street, and a third body at the doorstep, Boudreaux said.

Deputies found more victims inside the home, including the grandmother. Down the street they discovered the teen mom and her baby. A forensics investigation revealed she had tried to run away before the shooter caught up with her and stood over her and fired multiple rounds into her skull, Boudreaux said.

“It is very clear that this family was a target,” he said.

Three people survived and will be interviewed by authorities. They include a man who hid in the home as the killings happened.

“He was in such a state of fear that all he could do was hold the door, hoping he was not the next victim,” Boudreaux said.

On Jan. 3, a search warrant at the home led to the arrest of Eladio Parraz Jr., a convicted felon who was killed in the shooting Monday — though Boudreaux said Parraz Jr. was not the “initial intended target” and declined to elaborate. Parraz Jr., 52, had an extensive criminal record including driving recklessly to evade arrest, and possessing firearms and drugs, according to prison records.

The search warrant stemmed from a parole compliance check during which investigators found shell casings on the ground, the sheriff said. The occupants refused to let officials inside the home, Boudreaux said.

They returned with a search warrant and arrested Parraz Jr. after discovering ammunition, a rifle, a shotgun and methamphetamine in the home, court records show. He was released on bail four days later.

Rural California is no stranger to drug-related violence. In 2020, seven people were fatally shot in a small, rural Riverside County town where the property had been used for an illegal marijuana growing operation — a common practice in that area.

The following year, a man accidentally shot himself while working at his family’s illegal marijuana grow in Butte County’s Forbestown. His father and two brothers were accused of moving his body to prevent investigators from discovering the grow site.

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Associated Press writer Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz contributed to this report. Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York and Video Producer Javier Arciga in San Diego contributed to this report.

In limited initial details, a police spokesperson said officers responded to Sycamore Drive near Peppertree Way just after 10:45 a.m. for a report of a possible shooting.

A victim found suffering from at least one gunshot wound was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police did not share any suspect or vehicle descriptions Tuesday afternoon. The shooting is the city’s first homicide of the year. According to reporting by this news organization, Antioch police investigated eight homicides in 2022.

Anyone with information may call Antioch police’s non-emergency line at 925-778-2441, or may text a tip to 274637 (CRIMES) using the key word ANTIOCH.

Check back for updates.

Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.

Alkhem Session, 30, and Armond Hamilton, 35, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the 2016 killing of 22-year-old Damien Traylor. They were both transferred to the state prison system on Nov. 16 from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, records show.

Session and Hamilton were identified as two of the three people who attacked and shot Traylor outside an apartment on the 800 block of East 24th Street in Oakland on Nov. 4, 2016. One of Traylor’s friends told police that she, Traylor, and another man had travelled from Las Vegas to Oakland that day, and at about 9 a.m. the third friend stopped in that location and burglarized an apartment while she and Traylor slept in their Mercedes.

She told police they were awakened when three angry men confronted her and Traylor about the burglary. During this confrontation Traylor was beaten and shot. She later identified Session and Hamilton from police photo lineups, according to police testimony at the 2017 preliminary hearing. They were arrested about six weeks after the shooting.

The third suspect has not been charged, according to court records. Session and Hamilton will receive credit for the roughly six years they spent behind bars while the case was pending, and will be eligible for parole sometime in 2028.

Both Session and Hamilton are incarcerated at Wasco State Prison, roughly 250 miles from the Bay Area, records show.

Darrin “Mississippi” Lynch, 55, was transferred Dec. 23 to North Kern State Prison to begin serving his sentence. Last August, a Contra Costa jury convicted Lynch of murdering 47-year-old Andrew McCoy.

McCoy was shot and killed on the evening of May 6, 2019, on Shoreline Drive in Pittsburg. Prosecutors argued Lynch hid in a bush for two minutes waiting for McCoy to pass by, then yelled out, “Hey bro,” and shot him when he turned. Because of that, Lynch was convicted of a special circumstances enhancement of lying in wait, which made him eligible for life without parole.

Prosecutors didn’t spell out a clear motive, but a relative of McCoy testified she saw him arguing with Lynch a month before the shooting.

Lynch’s attorney argued during trial that prosecution witnesses were liars who were “spoon fed” testimony as part of a lazy police investigation. Lynch is appealing his conviction and sentence, a process that typically takes years.

Officers were called at 2:48 a.m. Jan. 1 to an apartment complex near North Jackson Avenue south of Alexian Drive for a report of an assault. They arrived to find a man suffering from serious injuries consistent with being hit by a vehicle, according to San Jose police.

The injured man was rushed to a local hospital, and police said he was initially expected to survive, but he died Sunday. He was identified by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office as 52-year-old Ernest Pino Valenzuela.

An assault investigation started shortly after the Jan. 1 police call determined that the now-deceased man was in an altercation with another man at an apartment complex, and that at some point the second man used his vehicle as a weapon.

The second man was initially arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, though he was later released; his identity has not been disclosed by police. After the injured man died, the case was transferred to the SJPD homicide unit, which will present their findings to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office for evaluation of potential charges.

Additional details about the circumstances of the homicide were not immediately available Tuesday, but police said the two men knew each other and that the incident was not a chance encounter.

The first homicide of the year investigated by police also involved a man who died from injuries suffered on New Year’s Day. Leroy Benjamin, 62 was shot near West San Carlos Street and the Highway 87 overpass, and died Jan. 9; a shooting suspect has been arrested in that case.

Anyone with information for investigators can contact SJPD homicide Detective Sgt. Mike White at 4104@sanjoseca.gov or Detective Sgt. John Van Den Broeck at 3829@sanjoseca.gov, or call 408-277-5283. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at svcrimestoppers.org.

Richard Raymond Klein’s scheduled 1:30 p.m. arraignment will come six days after he was arrested in Mexico by United States law enforcement officers, with help from Mexican police, on suspicion of the December murder in Suisun City.

Klein was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service while he was in Rosarito, just south of the U.S.- Mexico border and part of the greater San Diego-Tijuana region.

He was then transported back into the states and held for a time in San Diego, where he was arrested early Friday by Solano County Sheriff’s investigators and booked into custody later in the day.

Also, Klein was held on a felony warrant out of Contra Costa County on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of narcotics for sale, possession of a controlled substance while armed, and possession of a controlled substance for sale.

He remains in Solano County Jail without bail for the murder allegation and $450,000 in bail on the charges listed in the warrant.

Suisun City police said that at about 9:50 p.m. Dec. 15, a 37-year-old man was killed in the 1200 block of Potrero Circle.

Investigators, working closely with the Solano County District Attorney’s Office and the Major Crimes Task Force, were able to identify Klein as the suspect and locate him. He was taken into custody at about 11:15 a.m. Wednesday in Rosarito.

Klein was arrested on suspicion of the murder and likely will face additional felony charges once arraigned on Tuesday.

In a social media post last week, Suisun City police officials, saying the investigation remains ongoing and no more details would be released at this time, ask that anyone with relevant information about the December shooting should call 421-7373.

The Solano County Coroner on Monday declined to identify the second murder victim, saying his name was “protected” by the Suisun Police Department. Suisun City Police Commander Jeff Henderson did not return the Reporter’s request on Monday for more information.

A Solano County Superior Court judge in November ordered Klein to face a jury trial for the April shooting in Fairfield.

After a held-to-answer arraignment, Judge Robert Bowers told Klein to return to Department 15 in the Justice Building in Vallejo for the trial at 9 a.m. Jan. 25.  The judge also scheduled some pretrial matters, among them a trial management conference at 9 a.m. Jan. 23.

Klein, who is represented by criminal defense attorney Dustin M. Gordon of Vallejo, is accused of killing a man on April 21.

Court records showed Gordon submitted a motion for adequate bail and release on Nov. 10 and Klein submitted a fingerprint card and appears to have been released from jail on Nov. 14.

Arrested May 3 in the 1200 block of Vine Drive in Fairfield and booked into Solano County Jail, Klein is accused of fatally shooting Anthony Fuimaono, 56, of Fairfield, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Police records show that around 11:30 p.m. on April 21, a group had gathered outside a home in the 300 block of Manzanita Avenue.

An investigation revealed that an argument occurred and guns were drawn, police said. Fuimaono was shot during the chaos.

On May 5, Klein, a large man at 6 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 280 pounds, appeared in Department 11 in Fairfield for an arraignment on the charges. Solano County District Attorney’s Office filed its criminal complaint on May 5.

If convicted at trial for the April killing, Klein, who was convicted of a felony in 2006 in Contra Costa County, faces 25 years to life for the murder and likely more time for using a firearm and being a previously convicted felon.

The Bethel Island woman was arrested Jan. 11 on suspicion of murder solicitation, records show. She was taken into custody at her home around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, according to jail records.

According to authorities, the alleged murder plot came about after the 54-year-old grew frustrated with how her divorce case was going. Court records show the woman and her wife had each taken domestic violence restraining orders out against the other as the 2022 divorce case unfolded.

Police say that the 54-year-old allegedly offered another woman up to $30,000 to murder her estranged wife. And they allege she had a specific plan in mind: to have the would-be hitwoman steal a car and run the ex-wife over as she walked home from a corner bar.

Part of her plan, authorities said, was to make it look like a routine car accident or random hit-and-run crash.

On social media, the woman describes herself as an “animal lover” who is “following Jesus.” She once ran a local antique shop and a pet dog sitting business.

As of Friday, she was not charged and remained in a Contra Costa jail lieu of $1 million bail. It is unclear if she has retained an attorney.

A spokesman for the Contra Costa District Attorney said law enforcement has not yet asked for charges to be filed against her. Prosecutors have until Tuesday morning to file criminal charges or she will be released from custody.

No one else has yet been arrested, and the investigation remains open, authorities say.

Kevin Jose Valasco pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the death of Adriana “Drina” Roybal, his girlfriend. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 31, where Judge Thomas Nixon will decide what sentence to impose. Valasco faces up to three years in state prison, but could be sentenced to no additional jail time.

Valasco, who is from Antioch, ran Roybal over at around 11:50 p.m. Feb. 1, 2017, outside a home on the 400 block of Ruth Court in San Leandro, according to police. He was arrested and spent several days in jail, but then posted $70,000 bail. The terms of the plea deal allow him to remain free until he is sentenced.

After the crash, Valasco — whose name is also spelled “Velasco” in court records — told police that he and Roybal had been in the middle of a lengthy argument and that he’d trashed their apartment after she broke his glasses, according to court records. He claimed she lay in the middle of the road to block his exit, according to the testimony of San Leandro police Detective Tom Rogers.

“What (Valasco) said was that he wanted to push the car forward so that she would move out of the way, because he felt that once she saw the car moving she would get out of the way of a moving car,” Rogers testified, adding that Valasco said she jumped on the hood of his red BMW as it moved forward, and he ended up pinning her underneath the car.

In the aftermath of the incident, a family member of Roybal started an online petition to “Demand Justice for Drina” and revoke Valasco’s bail.

“It’s not fair he gets to enjoy FREEDOM and return to his family, while he ended Drina’s and we get to live without her,” the petition says. “Just because she’s not famous or rich she gets treated like no one?”

Details about how the investigator did not recognize the mental health history of Austin Lee Edwards were disclosed in a Dec. 30 letter from Superintendent Col. Gary T. Settle to the commonwealth’s inspector general. The letter suggests that other opportunities to flag troubling background were missed and includes information about changes in the agency’s process.

The detention order “per policy is a disqualifier for employment,” Settle wrote in the letter obtained by this news organization.

Yet Edwards was hired in July 2021 despite what the state police have described as a “robust,” “thorough” and “extensive” background investigation. Edwards graduated from the academy in January 2022 before resigning in October 2022. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia hired Edwards on Nov. 16, 2022. That agency said the state police did not disclose any negative background on Edwards.

On Nov. 25, Edwards, 28, showed up at the Riverside home of a 15-year-old girl with whom he had developed an online “catfishing” romance while posing as a 17-year-old boy. He drove cross-country, Riverside police said, after she rebuffed his request for nude photos of her. Edwards killed 69-year-old Mark Winek, his wife 65-year-old Sharie Winek and their daughter, Brooke Winek, 38, who was the girl’s mother, and set the Price Court home ablaze, police said.

Edwards fled with the girl. Using his service revolver, he engaged in a gun battle with San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies in the Mojave Desert before killing himself, the department said. The teen escaped from the car safely and is being cared for by Riverside County Child Protective Services.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin subsequently called for the inspector general to investigate Edwards’ initial hiring.

The state police said in December that “human error resulted in an incomplete database query during Edwards’ hiring process.” The agency at the time did not describe the error, what should have been uncovered or whether that information would have disqualified Edwards from being hired.

Settle wrote that the background investigator researching Edwards mistakenly entered a code for “applicants” in the computer database instead of “firearms.” The correct search term would have found the order, which would have disqualified Edwards, Settle wrote. Background investigators are trained to use the “firearms” search term, but this investigator was unaware of the requirement, Settle wrote.

What was missed was a temporary detention order filed with the court after an incident in 2016 in which Edwards cut himself, bit his father and threatened to kill himself and his father, according to a report written by the Police Department in Abingdon, a small southern Virginia city. Edwards wrestled with medics and police before being taken to a hospital and then to a facility where patients can be given short-term treatment for a mental health crisis, the report said.

That detention order banned Edwards from owning a gun. That document, obtained by SCNG from Southwest Virginia Today, has a portion to be filled in when the revocation is restored. But in Edwards’ case, it was not filled in. A Bristol General District Court clerk said she did not know whether Edwards ever petitioned to get his gun rights restored. A Virginia Supreme Court spokesperson did not return email and voicemail messages seeking that information.

Edwards was examined and judged to have a mental illness.

“There exists a substantial likelihood that, as a result of mental illness, (Edwards) will, in the near future, cause serious physical harm to him/herself or others, as evidenced by recent behavior,” according to a temporary detention order signed Feb. 8, 2016, in Washington District Court.

State police have made changes to other background check procedures as a result, Settle wrote.

Background investigators and polygraph examiners will now be required to discuss any “potentially relevant” information with the department. Edwards told the polygraph examiner that he had checked himself into a mental health facility after he attacked his father, Settle wrote. Yet that information didn’t prevent Edwards from being hired.

“It has always been the practice to share such information in accordance with training. However, as an added safeguard, this is now a requirement,” Corinne Geller, a state police spokeswoman, said Tuesday. “Putting it in writing as a requirement is an added safeguard.”

Settle wrote that the disclosure “would not have been an automatic disqualifier at this stage of the background process. However, this would have been an opportunity for clarification.”

Applicant investigators must now interview all adults living with applicants, not just those listed as references. Family members of Edwards were interviewed during the background check, Geller said, yet whatever they said about the attack, if anything, didn’t raise a sufficient alarm to block Edwards’ hiring.

Settle’s letter was written in response to a “Hotline Incident Report” that claimed the state police hired Edwards despite knowing of his mental health background and that Edwards told state police employees he was suicidal and threatened to kill others. Settle wrote that neither was true. But investigators apparently never saw the Abingdon police report.

Riverside police continue to investigate the slayings. They have not disclosed how the Wineks were killed, other than to say detectives do not believe the victims were shot. Detectives are poring over digital communications between Edwards and the teen, a process that can require days of work to get through only a few hours of messages, said Officer Ryan Railsback, a Police Department spokesman.

Sheldon Silas, 34, Reginald Whitley, 41, and Lamar Michaels, 35, were convicted in 2017 of murdering Christopher Zinn, 24, and his girlfriend, Brieanna Dow, 21, whose bodies were found riddled with bullets alongside Buchanan Road in unincorporated Antioch in October 2012. But last year, a California appeals court overturned their convictions, writing that the prosecutor’s “inappropriate” questions of a potential juror were “plainly tied to race” and warranted overturning the verdicts.

In late December, Silas, Whitely and Michaels all pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and were resentenced. For Michaels, the new deal meant freedom; he was given credit for time he’s already served behind bars and released from jail the same day. Silas, meanwhile, received 26 years with credit for 10, and Whitley was given 24 years with five years’ credit.

It is a drastically different outcome from their January 2017 sentencing, when the three were given life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder and gang enhancement charges.

Aside from the defendants’ successful appeal, there were other challenges for prosecutors: The homicides are now 10 years old, it was unclear who of the three fired the fatal shots, and a new law restricting gang-related charges would have limited evidence of the defendants’ gang memberships from going before a jury.

At the 2017 trial, the main witness was brought to and from court by armed detectives acting as security, due to concerns over potential witness retaliation. A fourth defendant was convicted at trial of using a fake name to visit Whitley in jail, and taking a picture of “paperwork” showing the man was a police informant, to intimidate the witness.

The unanimous decision by the First District Appellate Court to reverse the convictions cited questioning by then-Deputy District Attorney Melissa Smith, who left the Contra Costa DA’s office in 2020. The justices rectified Smith’s reasoning that the woman had a “myriad of anti-prosecution issues,” and reverses trial Judge Clare Maier’s ruling against a defense motion that asked her to find Smith was being discriminatory. Presiding Justice Jim Humes noted in the decision that the office and “this prosecutor in particular, had in the past exercised peremptory (juror) challenges on the basis of race.”