Police believe a drug cartel is behind the killing of six people in central California

Detectives from Tulare County, California, investigate the shooting that killed six people on January 16, 2023.AP

"A horrible slaughter."

Sheriff Mike Boudreaux of Tulare County (central California) thus described the scene that members of his department found early Monday morning in a house in the town of Goshen, located in the San Joaquin Valley, an agricultural area with a Latino majority. .

The victims included an older woman, a 16-year-old teenager, and her 10-month-old baby.

Judging by the excessive violence found at the crime scene, county authorities believe a drug cartel is involved in the murder.

“This is not the work of a small-time gang,” Boudreaux told local press, without disclosing which organization he suspects.

As of Tuesday morning, Tulare authorities had not arrested anyone linked to the murder.

Security cameras recorded two men entering a property east of Highway 99, which crosses the state from north to south and connects, among others, the cities of Bakersfield and Fresno.

These subjects are considered responsible for the violent homicide.

In the next few hours, the sheriff's office will interview two women who survived the attack by hiding behind two trailer vehicles next to the property.

"I can't think what kind of monster you need to be to do something like this," Samuel Pina told the AP agency on Tuesday.

Pina is the grandfather of Alissa Parraz, the murdered teenager.

According to the testimony of the agents who responded to the call for help, Parraz died holding her son, Nycholas Nolan Parraz, in his arms.

The man told the press that the deceased were relatives of Parraz, who lived with several people on her father's side.

These were his uncle, his uncle's cousin, his grandmother, and his great-grandmother.

“My family is in shock,” added Pina.

The Sheriff's Office has not reported the names or characteristics of the suspects, who have been considered professional hitmen for their way of acting on the scene and the cold blood shown.

All the victims, including the ten-month-old baby, had a coup de grâce to the head.

“This indicates that they knew what they were doing and were comfortable with their decisions,” the sheriff told the

.

Boudreaux believes that this was a premeditated attack on the family.

Although the investigation is ongoing, the sheriff is studying the link between the crime and a search warrant issued last week.

The search order, in search of weapons, marijuana and methamphetamines, affected the same land where the homicides have occurred.

The police then arrested one person, but the defendant was released on bail.

The investigations and DNA tests will determine if any of those who died this Monday is also the man who was arrested.

The police received the first emergency call minutes before 03:40 on Monday.

A neighbor told authorities there was an active shooter in the town of 3,000, located 35 miles south of Fresno.

The number of shots made him think there was a mass shooting going on.

This sound was followed by the sound of a fleeing vehicle.

What the uniformed officers who arrived at the scene found was not very different.

The bodies of two men were lying on the pavement in the street.

A third was at the entrance of the house.

Inside the house a macabre scene awaited.

An older woman was dead on her bed.

The sheriff's office presumes that she was killed while she slept.

Parraz and her son were found together in a ditch next to the house.

The multiple homicide has been considered by the civil authorities as "the worst nightmare" of this community.

Visalia and Goshen are just two of the many cities where thousands of farm workers from the Californian fields of this central valley reside.

points out that Jose María Guizar Valencia, one of the most important capos of the Zetas, was born in Tulare County, which today mourns a bloody massacre.

Drug-related violence is not new in California's semi-rural regions.

Authorities have warned of the proliferation of several farms where illegal marijuana is grown.

It caters to a large secondary market in the state's big cities, where many consumers are looking for cheaper weed that doesn't include the high taxes brought on by legalization in 2018. This has created a challenge for counties, who don't know well the full dimension of the conflict, since the farmers and property owners do not go before the authorities to denounce the facts because it is an illegal activity.

In September 2020, a massacre left seven victims on a ranch north of San Diego.

The bodies of several employees in the drug harvest were found in the place.

All the dead were migrants from Laos.

Nearly half a ton of marijuana was found there.

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