Vanessa Malaepule wasn't homeless. She lived with her mother and six children in a modest stucco house in Long Beach. But about five weeks ago, she began dating a man at a roadside encampment, and on Monday her family lamented that the relationship led her to be, as one relative put it, "in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Her body -- along with those of three men and another woman -- was found Sunday at what appeared to be a homeless camp near the 405 Freeway in Long Beach, authorities said Monday. All had been shot.
Along with Malaepule, 34, authorities identified Lorenzo Perez Villacana, 44, a denizen of the dark hideaway beneath low-hanging boughs of bottlebrush trees beside the Santa Fe Avenue offramp. As investigators continued to search for clues, 13 relatives of Malaepule gathered at the encampment to light candles and pray.
"It's sad, real sad," said Fauamoa Palaita, one of the relatives. "I feel hurt. We can't believe it."
The five bodies were discovered after an anonymous tipster called police Sunday morning. On Monday, police were still searching for a motive -- and hoping the mysterious informant would call back.
At a news conference Monday, Long Beach Police Chief Anthony Batts described the other victims as a Middle Eastern man in his 40s, a white man in his 50s and a Latino woman in her 20s. Their names were withheld pending notification of next of kin. It was unclear which of the men was Malaepule's boyfriend, though her family said he was among the dead.
All of the victims died of multiple gunshot wounds, Batts said, and investigators have received reports that "there may have been drug sales" at the encampment.
News of the murders stunned social workers who assist the estimated 1,100 chronically homeless men and women believed to live in the maze of freeway crawl spaces, underbrush and crude shelters in the Los Angeles River corridor.
"This is devastating news for us -- unexpected and horrific," said Susan Price, homeless services officer with the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services. "People are very concerned about this level of violence."
Malaepule, who was unemployed, lived about two miles from the crime scene with her mother and six children -- ages 8, 10, 13, 14, 15 and 16 -- who joined other relatives visiting the camp Monday.
To reach the secluded camp on the northern edge of the city, Malaepule's relatives walked down a narrow dirt path bordered by a chain-link fence topped by razor wire on one side and lined with thick brush on the other.
