5 bodies at house were dressed in black

The bodies of five family members found in a San Clemente home over the weekend were dressed in black, Orange County sheriff’s officials said Wednesday.

But deputies do not believe the attire had anything to do with something unusual such as a cult, said Sheriff’s Lt. Erin Giudice.

“Nothing odd like that,” Giudice said, but she added that investigators were continuing to search the home for clues, including a note or something left on a computer that could explain the deaths.

The badly decomposed bodies were identified through fingerprints as those of Manas Ucar, 58; his wife, Margrit, 49; their twin daughters, Grace and Margo, 21; and Margrit Ucar’s mother, Fransuhi Kesisoglu, 72.

Manas and Margrit Ucar were found shot and their bodies discovered on the first floor, near a closet off a master bedroom, investigators said. Autopsies have not determined how they died, Giudice said.

Two handguns were found near the bodies, Giudice said.

The couple’s daughters were found lying on a bed in another bedroom. Their grandmother was found in a chaise longue adjacent to the bed, Giudice said.

The family had been dead at least two weeks.

There were no obvious signs of trauma to the bodies of the daughters and their grandmother, and toxicology tests are underway to help investigators determine what killed them.

Giudice said that the home had no signs of forced entry and that there were no indications of a struggle.

The deaths have some of the “classic signs” of a murder-suicide, said a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Violence Policy Center.

Murder-suicides are almost always committed by a man, said Kristen Rand, legislative director for the center.

In most cases the killings occur at home, and usually the shooter is suffering from depression and has financial or other problems, she said. The shooter believes the family is better off dying with him than remaining alive to deal with the problems, she said.

The bodies were discovered Sunday after concerned relatives broke into the home.

The family was identified Tuesday after fingerprint experts were called in. Sheriff’s officials said they had difficulty identifying the bodies because of their decomposed state.

 david.reyes@latimes.com