California investigators found an elderly woman and her niece dead in the home they shared in Kerman this week and consider the deaths homicides.

Kerman Police Department officers were called to the home for a welfare check Thursday morning and forced their way inside when no one answered the door. They found Linda Thrash, 74, and Kandi Pombo, 57, dead inside with wounds “consistent with a homicide, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said.

“This is not a random act,” the sheriff’s office said, adding that the two women were “specifically targeted.”

Gwyn Runner, Pombo’s sister, told KFSN that Pombo was battling leukemia at the time of her death.

“You know, she was always there for all of us, and we’re going to miss her very much,” Runner said.

The sheriff’s office released no other information and asked anyone with information to call Detective Oscar Iniguez at 559-600-8201 or leave an anonymous tip via the Valley Crime Stoppers site.

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[Featured image: Fresno County Sheriff’s Office]