A US man shot dead his wife, five young children and himself yesterday after he faxed a note to a TV station claiming the couple had planned the killings together after they lost their jobs.
The bodies were found in a house in the south Los Angeles suburb of Wilmington.
"Why leave our children in someone else's hands," Ervin Lupoe wrote in a letter posted on the KABC-TV Web site.
The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch centre also received a call from a man who stated: "I just returned home and my whole family's been shot."
Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 8.30 am, apparently within minutes of the killings. Officers could still smell the gunshot residue in the air.
Although the fax asserted that Ana Lupoe planning the killings of the whole family, Lt John Romero said Ervin Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.
Ana Lupoe's body was found in an upstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple's twin two-year-old boys. The bodies of an eight-year-old girl and twin five-year-old girls were found alongside Ervin Lupoe's in another bedroom.
All were shot in the head, coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said.
It was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year. Police urged those facing tough economic times to get help rather than resort to violence.
"Today our worst fear was realised," said Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner. "It's just not a solution. There's just so many ways you find alternatives to doing something so horrific and drastic as this."
Ervin Lupoe removed three of the children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas, the principal told KCAL-TV.