A 20-year-old woman and her 18-year-old boyfriend have been charged with the murders of the woman’s three roommates over a rental dispute, police said Friday.
Jordan Guzman and Anthony McCloud were found in Las Vegas, 250 miles away from the scene of the crime in Hemet, California, according to police. They fled there in a Hyundai Sonata belonging to one of the victims; that vehicle was recovered.
The Hemet Police Department said officers responded to a home in San Jacinto Valley at about 9 p.m. Wednesday night after receiving a call about “a female in the home covered in blood.” The husband of one of the victims, 46-year-old Wendy Lopez-Araiza, made the 911 call after he arrived home from work. When officers and paramedics arrived, they found two more victims in the home.
The other victims were identified as Genesis Lopez-Araiza, 21 — Wendy Lopez-Araiza’s daughter — and Trinity Clyde, 18. All three were pronounced dead at the scene. Police said the Riverside County Coroner’s Office would provide a cause of death after autopsies were complete but noted that “injuries (were) consistent with murder by means other than a firearm.”
Hemet Police Chief Eddie Pust said during a Friday afternoon news conference that there was evidence the victims suffered blunt force trauma and strangulation.
Guzman and McCloud were suspects almost immediately, police said, because Guzman had recently moved into the home, and investigators were told there had been a dispute about the rent. Both had reportedly been at the home earlier in the evening. Local media reported that family members said the Lopez-Araizas were trying to get Guzman to move out.
“I know they were trying to get her to move out, I believe,” family member Cheryl Mead told ABC7. “I guess that this is how she retaliated, which is pretty horrific.”
When detectives learned of a possible connection to Las Vegas, they contacted police there with descriptions of the suspects and the vehicle, which belonged to Clyde. Police there located the car early Thursday morning and took Guzman and McCloud into custody. Both have been charged with three counts of murder and are being held at the Clark County Detention Center on $2 million bond each pending extradition.
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[Featured image: Jordan Guzman and Anthony McCloud/Hemet Police Department]
