The killer next door, literally.
They had asked the neighbor if he could stop firing his Ar-15 semi-automatic rifle in the garden of the house to put one of their little ones to sleep when it was already 11pm but he got annoyed and shortly after entered their home opening fire and killing five people, including an 8-year-old boy who died in hospital.
Five other members of the same family were saved, including three children, who were shielded by two women who lost their lives.
Yet another American massacre took place in Cleveland, about 60 km northeast of Houston, Texas, one of the US states with the most permissive gun laws.
The victims - a man, three women and the child - are all originally from Honduras;
the suspected killer, Francisco Oropeza, 38, is from Mexico and fled.
Authorities have launched an extensive manhunt for the man and think he is within a few miles.
According to San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers, the man, who fled into a dense forest and possibly intoxicated at the time of the shooting, could still be armed.
For the manhunt, in which the FBI is also involved, trained dogs and drones are also used.
In the meantime they have already accused him of five murders.
It all happened in seconds on Friday night.
“The neighbors came up to him and said … 'Hey man, you can avoid shooting, we have a baby trying to sleep,” said San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.
"So they went back to their house but we have video of him walking down the driveway of their house with his Ar-15," he continued.
All five victims were shot in the head.
Two of the women killed were found lying on top of the surviving children in a bedroom, "trying to protect them," the sheriff said.
Oropeza often shot in the backyard, as if it were a shooting range.
And earlier the authorities had gone to talk to him, hoping to get him to stop.
The neighbors' request must have irritated him, triggering the tragedy.
"It's awful, no one should ever see this scene, the blood, the upheaval that happened in that house," Capers noted.
The victims had moved from Houston to Cleveland to live in what they thought was a quiet country house, unaware that they were meeting their deaths.
This is the 19th shooting in the US that has left at least four dead (not including the killer) at the beginning of the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The massacre has renewed calls to ban weapons of war such as the Ar-15, the most used in mass shootings in the United States.
But so far Republicans have resisted, even after the shooting at a Nashville school last month.
