A family of four, including two young children, was discovered dead inside the home they occupied for the past 15 years after the property was subject of a foreclosure.
Authorities say they were killed in a murder-suicide, after members of the Union County Sherriff’s Department found by the bodies of 51-year-old Ruben Alarcon and 52-year-old Andrewa Alarcon, along with their two young daughters, around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Sheriff’s officers went to the house to serve an eviction notice on the Lincrest Terrace home that was in foreclosure, and made the grisly discovery soon after arriving.
Each family member suffered gunshot wounds, according to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.
A joint investigation by the prosecutor’s office and Union police determined that the mother, Andrea, had shot her husband and two daughters before turning the gun on herself.
The weapon used to carry out the grisly killings was found near her body when authorities arrived at the home, law enforcement officials said.
“In tragedies of this magnitude, there are no words that can heal, nor explanations that can serve to make sense of them to the public. Our thoughts go out to the family and friends of these victims and to the Union community as a whole in the wake of this horrible event”, said Union County Prosecutor William Daniel.
Neighbors believed the girls were under the age of 10.
The house was sold at a sheriff’s sale for $322,000 in November but the family that lived there should have been out of the house, and had 60 days to vacate the property after the sale or face eviction.