Jul 19, 2015 3 min read

MODESTO, Calif. – Modesto police are trying to understand the horror that happened inside a two-story home on a quiet cul-de-sac where two women and three small girls were slain. A 30-year-old man was arrested Sunday in San Jose in the killings.

The suspect, said by police to have fathered one of the girls with one of the women and to be related to the other victims, was arrested around 1 a.m. as he walked to a parked car at Oakridge Mall on Blossom Hill Road. He was identified as Martin Martinez and booked on suspicion of murder, San Jose police said.

On Saturday afternoon, police found the victims inside the upscale, spacious suburban Modesto home at 2624 Nob Hill Court. Police did not identify the victims, or say how or when they were killed.

San Jose officers were asked by Modesto police to watch for Martinez, who was believed to be driving a red Lincoln Navigator from Modesto to the home of another family member in San Jose. Officers spotted the unoccupied Navigator parked in the 2400 block of Lucerne Way and learned that Martinez had left with another family member in another car, which they traced to the mall parking lot about 8 miles away. Martinez was arrested there without incident, police said.

Officers began investigating the case as a homicide Saturday when the five bodies were found inside the four-bedroom house. On Sunday, the block of modern two-story homes on neatly trimmed landscaped yards was filled with police cars and sealed off with yellow police tape.

Officers found the bodies at about 3:30 p.m. after responding to a call for a security check at the home. The dead girls were thought to be from 6 months to 6 years of age, police said.

Although none of the victims was identified by police, one of the victims was believed to be Modesto physician and family practitioner Amanda Crews. An envelope with her name and address was seen inside a gray sedan parked in front of the home, and one neighbor said that a female doctor lived in the house. Several published reports said Crews was among the victims.

A half-dozen neighbors on the cul-de-sac where the bodies were discovered said they had not seen anyone come or go from the house.

“They just recently moved in, and they pretty much kept to themselves,” said neighbor Nirmala Kumar, 44. “It’s really scary because nothing like that ever happened here.”

Another neighbor, Sam Sivia, 17, who lives three doors away, said he had never seen them. Another neighbor, who identified himself as Tyler, said he had smiled and waved at one resident of the house as she walked to the mailbox and that she looked “tired and distressed.”

The bodies were removed from the home Sunday. Officers from a private security patrol guarded the home.