Bakersfield — The family matriarch, her daughter and three young grandchildren went to church Sunday, as they did each week.
Earnestine Harper, 70, wore her Sunday best and was in good spirits. Joanie Harper, 39, had her preschool-age children in tow and a newborn baby to introduce to the congregation at East Bakersfield Church of Christ.
Joanie was happy showing off the baby, said Wanda Carroll, a longtime family friend. Joanie's mother, Earnestine, well known as a local African American civil rights leader, told Carroll, "I'm doing really good."
It was the last time the Harpers were seen alive.
Early Tuesday morning, a close friend who hadn't heard from the family since Sunday went to check. The woman saw Joanie Harper motionless in a bedroom, her little girl beside her, Carroll said, the child's hand resting on her mother's stomach.
Within hours, local, state and federal authorities were seeking a popular elementary school vice principal, the father of Joanie Harper's children.
Police discovered the bodies of Harper and Marques, 4, Lindsey, 23 months, and 6-week-old Marshall dead of gunshot wounds in one bedroom. Earnestine Harper was found shot to death in another bedroom, a tragic end for a woman who had earned the community's respect for her efforts to correct what she saw as unequal treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system.
"Everybody is totally amazed. It's unbelievable it would happen to this family in particular and in this area in particular," said Bakersfield City Councilwoman Irma Carson, who once lived in the historically black neighborhood known as the Lowell District. "Who would do a thing like this?"
Police were looking to question Vincent Brothers, 41, who, according to court records, was divorced from Joanie Harper in 2001. Friends said Tuesday that they believed the couple were still married and that Brothers was the father of all three children.
Police called Brothers "a possible suspect" and said he could not be located. When he did not show up Tuesday -- even as the deaths of his family made national news -- members of the tightknit community near downtown got a second shock, weighing the likelihood that an educator they knew for his kindness to children may have been involved in the killings.
Many in the Harpers' circle of friends learned of the shooting deaths through telephone calls from neighbors and church members. While the neighborhood -- once solidly middle class, now fraying -- had suffered gang shootings in recent years, the deaths of three generations of one family stunned residents.
"Earnestine was full of life, loved people, loved to help people, to right the wrongs.... She was always searching for the truth," said her nephew Jeff Hollis, 50, who sat holding his face in his hands near his aunt's home. "Beautiful kids, man, smart, full of life, raised up with morals, respect, things you don't see people raise their kids with today."
Bakersfield Police Capt. Neil Mahan called the killings "a horrific crime for the community." He said his department was devoting all of its detectives to the investigation, as well as patrol officers and the Kern County district attorney's crime lab. The FBI was also working the case, he said.
Mahan asked for help from neighbors and people who knew the family in reconstructing Brothers' whereabouts over the last week.
Police found his blue Chevy pickup truck Tuesday but refused to say where. They also would not say what led them to consider Brothers a possible suspect, adding that there are currently no other suspects.
Bakersfield Police Det. Mary DeGeare said police had not ruled out a murder-suicide. DeGeare also said there was "some indication of property loss" at the home, which is owned jointly by Earnestine and Joanie Harper. Autopsies are planned for today.
Lethuy Horton, 39, a hairdresser at Who's Bad! Salon, where Joanie Harper had her hair styled every two weeks, said during her recent pregnancy Harper often talked about the family's plan to move to a gated community in southwest Bakersfield. Horton said Harper told her they could get two master suites, one for her mother and one for her to share with Brothers.
"They needed a bigger place because their family was getting bigger," Horton said.
The mood in the salon was somber Tuesday, with Harper's 8:30 a.m. appointment for this coming Saturday still written in their book. Horton said Joanie Harper was a loyal customer who brought in girls from her church and paid for their hair to be styled. Her children would come to the salon in their pajamas and play. Her mother, Earnestine Harper, was a leader in local social justice issues, active in her church and respected by longtime friends for her strong faith and for successfully raising five children as a single mother.
