VISALIA, Calif. (AP) — Two weeks after gunmen brazenly killed a teenage mother, her 10-month-old baby and four other family members, the suspects remain at large. On Monday, authorities did not provide a motive for the attack in a central California farming community.
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux has yet to publicly describe the shooters or provide information on what he previously called “murder-style” killings, other than to say investigators believe they are gang-related.
Boudreaux did not respond to questions from reporters during a news conference Monday, his first public comments since the day after the Jan. 16 shooting in rural Goshen. He also did not address whether anyone in the home was specifically targeted.
The violence in the community of about 3,000 residents in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley was the first of three mass murders in California this month.
It was followed by a January 21 massacre at a suburban Los Angeles dance hall that left 11 dead and nine injured. Police say the gunman was later found dead in a pickup truck with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Less than 48 hours after that massacre, shootings at two Half Moon Bay farms on January 23 near San Francisco left seven dead and one wounded. That gunman has been arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder.
Authorities have said they were looking for two suspects in the Goshen murders. 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 mother who was killed in Goshen was fleeing violence in the pre-dawn hours when the killers caught up with her outside the home and shot the young mother and her son. The other four victims ranged in age from 19 to 72, including a grandmother who was shot while she was sleeping.
The victims have been identified as: Rosa Parraz, 72 years old; Eladio Parraz, Jr., 52; Jennifer Analla, 49; Marcos Parraz, 19; Alissa Parraz, 16; and Nycholas Parraz, 10 months.
The sheriff said Monday that the teen mother had just been awarded full custody of her son after he spent months in the foster care system. The two met on January 13, three days before they were both killed.
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