Collateral Damage

Photo: Ervin Antonio Lupoe (top left); his wife, Ana (top right); and their five children-- Brittney (top), twin girls Jaszmin and Jassely, and twin boys Benjamin and Christian.

"After a horrendous ordeal, my wife and I felt it better to end our lives ... and why leave our children in someone else's hands?" These are the shocking words of 40 year old Ervin Antonio Lupoe in what is believed to be a suicide note written before he decided to kill his wife, eight year old daughter, twin boys, twin girls, and then end his own life. This shocking crime scene was called the most grizzlie crime scene witnessed by case hardeed L.A. Homicide detectives in years.

This young upwardly mobile Black couple lived in a nice three-story house in the suburb of Los Angelas. Both the husband and his 39 year old wife worked as lab technicians at Kaiser-Permanentes West Los Angelas Medical Center until a few weeks ago,when both were fired from their jobs for reasons that are still "sketchy" at best.

Ervin Antonio Lupoe said that he and his wife were being investigated for "misrepresentation of our employment to an outside agency for the benefit of child care." He said that the initial interview was on December 19th. When he reported to work on December 23rd, it seems that he was allegedly told by a supervisor, "I don't know why you even bothered to come to work. You should've blown your brains out."

Now, a family of seven lies dead. Officials at Kaiser Permanentes have said that they "find it hard to believe that any manager or supervisor would have told Lupoe to take his life." Of course, they are going to say that... In fact, they better say that because I can see a nice lawsuit brewing if they didn't.

The point is, I can imagine how hard Christmas must have been for this family of seven with both individuals suddenly without employment... morgtage, car notes, and utility bills looming... health care cut off and no money to even think about Christmas gifts. I can imagine how hopeless this couple must have felt but, I can't imagine it being so hopeless that both the man and the woman made the horrifying decision to end their lives and take their childrens lives too so that they wouldn't be parentless and alone in the world.

I would like to say that this horrific murder-suicide is the collateral damage of an economy gone bad and that America should expect more incidents like this in the coming years as more families wind up without jobs and feeling desperate. I sincerely hope that I am wrong. I keep asking myself why did these two feel that hopeless? They were both college graduates and skilled individuals. You can't tell me that they couldn't have found employment in the future or had the economic outlook become that bleak to them?

There are questions that will never be answered... questions that only Mr. and Mrs. Lupoe know the answers to. I ask myself everyday if this is only the beginning of some really hard times and if I'm prepared to deal with them if this is?