A mass shooting in Orange, Calif., has sent shockwaves through the manufactured housing industry and within the small Southern California city where it occurred on the afternoon of March 31 at Unified Homes. Four people were killed, and two more injured, including the suspect who is hospitalized following a shootout with police.
Unified Homes owner Luis Tovar, his daughter Jenevieve Raygoza, 28, Leticia Solice, 58, who is was a Unified agent, and Matthew Farias, 9, were killed.
Blanca Tamayo, Farias and Raygoza’s mother, survived the attack.
Police said the alleged shooter used a bicycle cable and lock to block the exterior gates to the business prior to entering. Police engaged in a shootout with Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, who was shot.
The officers were uninjured. Gonzalez has been charged with four counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder.
Karla Maria Tovar, Luis Tovar’s wife as well as an agent with Unified Homes, spoke with local media. She explained how she was attempting to shield their 10-year-old son from at least some of the grief from the loss of someone she described as a model husband and father. She also vowed to keep Unified Homes operating.
“Unified Homes is going to go forward,” Karla Maria Tovar told the Daily News. “I don’t know how (I’ll do it), but I will.”
Investigators said Gonzales had either professional or personal relationships with each of the victims. He had been in a relationship with and long-estranged from a broker assistant with Unified Homes, Aleyda Mendoza, who in media reports stated that she had no understanding of what could have motivated the shooting.
“I can’t understand what went through his head to make such a terrifying decision,” Mendoza said in a quote from the Associated Press. “He left behind a sea of pain and grief for so many families who can’t find comfort.”
The Farias family has set up a GoFundMe page to try to abate funeral costs for the the 9-year-old victim, who had been a student at Hoover Elementary School in Santa Ana.
“As members of the manufactured housing industry family, we are all affected by this senseless tragedy,” Newport Pacific Companies Marketing and Regional Manager Maria Horton said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families who lost loved ones in this horrific disaster.”
