IRVINE, Calif. — Police conducting a wellness check at a gated community home in California made a shocking discovery Wednesday.
“Three severely decomposed bodies” were found inside the home, KTLA reported. Police said the bodies all appeared to be adults. According to KTLA, a father, mother and adult son were reportedly residents of the home.
According to The Orange County Register, officers were sent to the home for a wellness check on behalf of Canadian authorities. Extended family members reached out to authorities when they said they had not been able to contact their relatives for over a year.
There was no sign of forced entry, police said. Officers had to break into a vehicle in the driveway to open the garage so they could enter the home, The Orange County Register reported. A handgun was found near one of the bodies, police said.
The investigation is ongoing, but police said it may be a murder-suicide or “domestic-related” incident, KNBC reported.
Neighbors told KTLA that many of the properties in the neighborhood are used as vacation homes, so it wouldn’t have been unusual for a property to appear vacant for long periods of time. Lt. Bill Bingham told KNBC that since the homeowners’ association maintains the front yard, it would not have been “immediately apparent that nobody’s been caring for the place for up to a year.”
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