Deputies say the victims appear to be related; a handgun was recovered at the scene.
LAKEWOOD, CA — Three people—a man, a woman and a 17-year-old girl—were found fatally shot inside a home Thursday morning in a residential stretch near South Street and Bellflower Boulevard, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
Authorities said they were called at about 7:53 a.m. to the 5800 block of Lorelei Avenue on a report of an assault with a deadly weapon. Deputies arrived to find the three victims with gunshot wounds and pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators believe the victims are family members. Detectives recovered a handgun inside the home and were interviewing a woman who emerged as deputies arrived. Officials had not announced an arrest or identified the victims as of Thursday evening.
Detectives with the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau began canvassing the neighborhood and processing the one-story home for evidence, photographing rooms and collecting shell casings while patrol cars blocked off the street. Deputy David Yoo said the victims suffered wounds to their upper bodies. Lt. Daniel Vizcarra said a woman who was at the home when deputies arrived was “extremely distraught” and was taken to a sheriff’s station to be interviewed. Investigators said they were working to determine the sequence of events inside the house and whether anyone else was present earlier in the morning.
Officials described the victims only by age and gender and said their names would be released by the county medical examiner after relatives are notified. The woman interviewed by detectives was described as a family member, but authorities did not call her a suspect and emphasized that the circumstances remain under investigation. Detectives said they found a single handgun and were testing it as potential evidence. They did not share how many rounds were fired, where in the home the victims were found or whether there were signs of forced entry. Investigators also did not disclose a motive and said there were no immediate reports of threats in the hours beforehand.
The quiet stretch of Lorelei Avenue, lined with driveways and trimmed lawns, sits just south of Lakewood High School and a short drive from South Street’s strip of small businesses. Neighbors said traffic is typically light around 8 a.m. except for school drop-offs. Several residents watched from porches as crime scene tape went up and detectives walked in and out of the doorway. One man who lives nearby said he heard “a burst, then silence,” before sirens. A woman who passed the intersection on her morning walk said she saw “two patrol cars and an ambulance pull up almost at once,” then turned back as deputies widened the perimeter. Both declined to give their names.
Records show the Sheriff’s Department has handled sporadic property calls in the area but few crimes of violence. The triple homicide comes amid ongoing concerns about gun violence across Los Angeles County, where investigators handled several multi-victim shootings over the past year in both the San Gabriel Valley and the Antelope Valley. In Lakewood, deputies in recent months have emphasized neighborhood watch coordination and license-plate camera deployments, though officials said Thursday’s case appeared confined to a single household and did not present an ongoing threat to the broader public.
Detectives said their next steps include obtaining search warrants for digital devices, interviewing relatives and neighbors, and awaiting autopsy results from the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner to establish precise times and causes of death. Officials said they would release the victims’ names after next-of-kin notifications are completed. The Sheriff’s Department said additional updates could come after evidence processing and preliminary lab reviews are complete. No court filings were posted as of Thursday evening, and authorities did not announce any scheduled briefings beyond routine media updates from the homicide bureau.
By late afternoon, yellow tape still cordoned off the block as technicians worked under bright work lights and a steady flow of marked SUVs came and went. A deputy carried paper evidence bags to a waiting vehicle while a pair of detectives spoke quietly with two people outside the tape. “We’re going to be here a while,” one detective said, noting the volume of photographs and measurements needed in a case with multiple victims. Residents slowly returned from work and school, detouring around cruisers to reach their driveways, whispering to one another about what they had seen that morning.
As of Thursday at 6:30 p.m., no arrests had been announced and officials said the investigation remained active, with more information expected after autopsies and family notifications in the coming days.
Author note: Last updated January 15, 2026.