LOS ANGELES, Jan 28: A man fatally shot his wife, five young children and himself, claiming in a note he faxed to a TV station that the couple had just been fired from their hospital jobs and together planned the killings as an escape for the whole family.

“Why leave our children in someone else’s hands,” Ervin Lupoe wrote in a letter posted on Tuesday night on the KABC-TV website.

The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch centre also received a call from a man who stated, “I just returned home and my whole family’s been shot.”

Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, apparently within minutes of the killings. Officers could still smell the gunshot residue in the air.

Although the fax asserted that Ana Lupoe planned the killings of the whole family, police Lt John Romero said Ervin Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.

Ana Lupoe’s body was found in an upstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple’s twin two-year-old boys. The bodies of an eight-year-old girl and twin five-year-old girls were found alongside Ervin Lupoe’s in another bedroom.

All were shot in the head, some multiple times, Coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter said. The killings might have occurred between Monday evening and early Tuesday, based on neighbours’ accounts, he said.

Ervin Lupoe removed three of the children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas, the principal told KCAL-TV. Crescent Heights Elementary School Principal Cherise Pounders-Caver said nothing seemed to be troubling Lupoe at that time; she did not ask why the family was moving.

Kaiser Permanente Medical Centre in West Los Angeles released a statement confirming both Lupoe and his wife had worked there; both were medical technicians.

“We are deeply saddened to hear of the deaths of the Lupoe family,” it said.

In his letter, Ervin Lupoe claimed he and his wife both had been fired and that she suggested they kill themselves and their children, too. Police described the fax but did not release details.

The letter indicated that Lupoe and his wife had been under investigation for misrepresenting their employment to an outside agency in order to obtain childcare. He claimed that an administrator told the couple on Dec 23: “You should not even had bothered to come to work today, you should have blown your brains out.”

The couple complained to the human resources department and eventually were offered an apology but two days later the Lupoes were fired, according to the letter.

“They did nothing to the manager who stated such and did not attempt to assist us in the matter, knowing we have no job and five children under eight years with no place to go. So here we are,” the note said.

At the bottom of the note, Lupoe wrote, “Oh Lord, my God, is there no hope for a widow’s son?”—AP