A 19-year-old man is suspected of murder shoot four people dead while they slept at a home in Lancaster, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Miguel Diego Sandoval is accused of breaking into the home during the early morning hours of Nov. 16 and killing Christine Aca-ac, 29, her 24-year-old brother Janvi Maquindang, Edwin Garcia, 24; and Matthew Montebello, 23, before allegedly setting the house on fire. As officers removed the four victims and another person from the burning home, three of them were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Montebello later died of his injuries at a hospital, while a fifth victim, who called 911, survived.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of these four lives, including a brother and a sister, who were callously gunned down while sleeping peacefully in their beds,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement Tuesday announcing the charges.
According to the LA County Sheriff’s Department, a teenage girl inside the home called 911 at 1:27 a.m.
“She stayed in her room because she was scared, and that’s when the officers were able to locate her and get her out of the house,” LASD Detective Steve DeJong said of the 911 caller. “She probably could have sustained life-threatening injuries.”
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She told authorities that several people had been shot inside the home, located in the 44500 block of North Tabler Avenue, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. When officers arrived, they found the home completely engulfed in heavy smoke and flames.
Hours after the killings on Nov. 16, around 4 a.m., fire officials said one person was in custody. But a few hours later, around 8 a.m., sheriff’s officials said no one had been arrested. Officers said later that evening that they had no leads on suspects and that the killer may have been among the people killed.
But the next week, on November 21, the LA County Sheriff’s Department came announced Sandoval’s arrest. Five days later, on Tuesday, the district attorney’s office announced that criminal charges had been filed, including four counts of murder, one felony count of first-degree residential burglary in the presence of a person and one felony count of arson of an occupied building or real property Good.
Prosecutors also filed special charges — which may carry a sentence enhancement — of intentionally killing the victims by lying in wait, committing multiple murders and using a gun during the crime.
Sandoval will be arraigned on Jan. 27 at the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse in Lancaster. He is currently being held without bail at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles, inmate records show.
If convicted of all charges, prosecutors say Sandoval could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
