Man Kills Girls, Commits Suicide in Standoff

ANTIOCH, Calif. —  A tense two-day standoff between a SWAT team and a murder suspect holding his two daughters captive at gunpoint ended late Saturday with all three dead.

Carlos Joseph Ramirez, 22, had been holed up in his ex-girlfriend’s house since about 6 a.m. Friday, apparently despondent over their troubled relationship.

Negotiations were proceeding calmly until shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday, when Ramirez became hysterical, police said in a news conference early Sunday.

After hearing gunshots, police went in, reportedly lobbing several concussion bombs into the house, officers said. Ramirez and his 2-year-old daughter were found dead. The 3 1/2-year-old girl died on the way to the hospital.

“Shortly after midnight we received one female victim. She was dead on arrival,” said Delta Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Nancy J. Monfort.

As the standoff moved into its second day Saturday morning, authorities began to notice a striking similarity to a hostage situation that rocked this same small town--coincidentally five years ago to the day.

On July 11, 1993, Joel Souza took his 8-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter hostage after running into his estranged wife and her boyfriend at the fair. During a standoff with police, he shot and killed both children, then committed suicide.

Ramirez was named in a $1-million warrant in the November 1995 killing of Martin Maya, 17, in a suspected gang-related shooting that left two others wounded. He was also accused of shooting four people in 1994, police said.

Witnesses identified Ramirez as the gunman in 1995, and a search of his home turned up ammunition matching that used in the shooting. But he never returned home, and was believed to have spent some time with relatives in Mexico.