2 Women, Boy Die in Murder-Suicide

Two women and a boy died Sunday in a fiery murder-suicide in an unincorporated area of Whittier, sheriff’s officials said.

About 12:30 a.m., a woman poured a flammable liquid on her sleeping roommate and then shot her when she woke up, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Gage. The woman also shot to death a boy, about 10, who was staying in the apartment in the 11600 block of Valley View Avenue, before setting the place ablaze and turning the gun on herself, Gage said.

Authorities were withholding names until relatives could be notified. Sheriff’s officials said the relationship of the victims to one another was not clear. The women were pronounced dead at the scene and the boy died at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. One woman was about 60 years old, the other about 50, according to coroner’s officials.