On Jan. 26 and 27, a man shot and killed his wife and five children in their home before turning the gun on himself. He and his wife had been fired a week earlier from their jobs at the West Los Angeles Kaiser Permanente Medical Center for allegedly misrepresenting their employment to an outside agency to obtain childcare.
According to the Long Beach Press Telegram, Ervin Antonio Lupoe, 40, explained in a suicide letter sent to a local television station that he and his wife, Ana Elizabeth Lupoe, decided to commit suicide and kill their children after both had lost their jobs at Kaiser. In his letter to KABC, Lupoe said “…my wife felt it better to end our lives and why leave our children in someone’s else’s hands…”
Ervin Lupoe had been an X-ray technician and Ana Elizabeth had been a mammography technician for the medical center before their termination. Three of the five children, Brittney, 8; and Jaszmin and Jassley, 5; were enrolled at Crescent Heights Boulevard Elementary School, but were pulled from classes Jan. 15. The parents said the family was moving to Kansas. Their other two children, Benjamin and Christian, were age 2.
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