FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Police say a woman who shot her two children, their father and a cousin in California's Central Valley and then committed suicide took video of herself on her iPad as she smoked methamphetamine several hours earlier.
The apparent murder-suicide by 23-year-old Aide Mendez began Sunday morning when she argued with the father of her two children, 33-year-old Eduardo Lopez.
Lt. Mark Salazar, homicide commander for the Fresno Police Department, says police arrived on the scene to find Lopez outside the Silver Lakes Apartment with knife and gunshot wounds.
Officers heard a shot from inside the apartment and discovered Mendez had fatally shot herself and her two children, 17-month-old Aliyah Echeverria and 3-year-old Isaiah Echeverria. She also shot and killed a cousin, 27-year-old Paul Medina.
Lopez was hospitalized in critical condition.
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