LOS ANGELES (AP) – The estranged wife of the man who allegedly went on a rampage Earlier this week in an office building in Southern California in which four people were killed, including a 9-year-old boy, she said she could not determine why her husband targeted people who had been treating her as a family for more than a decade. do not have.
Police say the suspect, Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, targeted the brokerage firm Unified Homes., and had personal and business relationships with the victims. His wife, Aleyda Mendoza, worked in the Orange County business for more than ten years as a real estate agent.
Mendoza, in a text message to The Associated Press, said she and Gaxiola had been separated for two years and “he never told me anything about where he lived or what he did.”
“I can not understand what went through his head to make such a frightening decision,” Mendoza wrote. “He left a sea of pain and sorrow for so many families who could not find comfort.”
Gaxiola, 44, is charged with four counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with the shooting of two officers who were not hit, and for the murder of the boy’s mother, authorities said. His decision is scheduled for Monday. Police have not yet released his motive.
The shooting in the city of Orange, southeast of Los Angeles, was the country’s third major mass shooting in just over two weeks. The other shootings – in Colorado and Georgia – left 18 dead.
Authorities identified the people killed in the attack in California as Luis Tovar, 50, who owns Unified Homes; Leticia Solis Guzman, 58; and Jenevieve Raygoza (28) and her brother, Matthew Farias, 9.
Mendoza said the people at Unified Homes “always supported” me and her children.
“Unified Homes has been my home for over ten years and they have been my family,” she wrote. “I learned everything I know there and they shaped who I am today.”
Matthew was usually at day care after school, but Wednesday afternoon he was with his mother, Blanca Tamayo, who worked at Unified Homes. She was the only person shot who survived. When police arrived, Tamayo was washing her deceased son inside.
Tovar had a previous relationship with Tamayo and they were Raygoza’s parents.
Mendoza said she and her children now fear for their lives because they have received threatening calls since the shooting.
“My heart is broken, I still can not accept that it happened,” she wrote. “I close my eyes and pray to God, it’s all a bad dream, and I’ll wake up soon.”
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Taxin reported from Orange County.