4 in Pico Rivera Family Fatally Stabbed in Rampage

Moving from bedroom to bedroom, an attacker slashed and stabbed five members of a much-admired Pico Rivera family early Friday, killing the father, two sons and a daughter and wounding the mother as they slept, authorities said.

The floors of the Flores family’s neatly kept yellow house in the 9600 block of Marjorie Street were streaked with blood when Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrived.

Richard Flores, a 42-year-old affable bear of a man, was found dead in the hallway, where he apparently collapsed after struggling with his killer. His wife, Sylvia, 39, told investigators she awakened to see a man stabbing her and her husband but did not recognize the attacker. She was in stable condition Friday night at County-USC Medical Center with wounds to her upper torso.

The Flores’ two sons, Richard, 17, and Matthew, 10, were found dead in the bedroom they shared. The Flores’ 13-year-old daughter, also named Sylvia, had been killed in another room. Three other daughters were uninjured.

Sylvia Flores described her assailant as a cleanshaven Latino in his 20s, dressed in a white tank top, blue shorts and a blue bandanna.

Authorities say it is unclear whether the man was a stranger or someone she knew but couldn’t identify in the darkness.

“We’ve got a lot of interviewing to do and hopefully that will lead to something,” said Lt. Marilyn Baker of the sheriff’s homicide bureau. “I’m trying to keep an open mind to every possibility at this point.”

She and other homicide detectives acknowledged that stabbers usually know their victims.

The family members who escaped injury were all sleeping in another bedroom. They are daughter Esperanza, 18, and Monica Diaz, 16, and Laura Reta, 18--nieces of Sylvia Flores whom she and her husband adopted.

Usually, friends said, Monica roomed with Sylvia, but on this night she apparently joined the older girls.

Esperanza awakened at 3 a.m., walked out of her bedroom and found her father bleeding on the floor nearby. “I’ve been stabbed, get us some help,” he said to her, according to sheriff’s detectives. Meanwhile, her mother shouted from a bedroom to call 911. Later, authorities discovered the phone was off the hook, perhaps dislodged when Sylvia Flores tried unsuccessfully to reach it.

Esperanza ran screaming to a house across the street, startling sleeping residents.

One neighbor, Ernie Hernandez, got to the house and found a scene engulfed in frenzy and grief.

Grim Outpost of Mourning

In a neighborhood more accustomed to backyard barbecues and pickup basketball games, neighbors and sheriff’s deputies converged as Flores family members shrieked in agony, “My Dad’s dead!” and “My brother’s dead!”

By midday, the block had become a grim outpost of mourning, with friends placing irises on a sidewalk across the street as investigators worked inside the house. On one corner, where 17-year-old Richard Flores and his friends once played Wiffle ball, the sheriff’s department forensic team set up its base of operation.

As news of the crime spread--stunning friends, classmates and neighbors--a profile emerged of the Flores family: close-knit, genial and athletic. They lived in a community so secure that many people left their doors unlocked. Authorities said the Flores’ home may have been unlocked Thursday night.

Richard Flores, a purchasing agent for Architectural Woodworking Co. in Monterey Park, had worked his way up in the company. Beginning in 1976, he moved from apprentice to craftsman and eventually into management. But it was his devotion to his children’s sports that his friends and neighbors remember best.

Flores coached Pop Warner football, youth baseball and youth basketball. Five of his children played competitive sports.

“I don’t think you could play organized sports in Pico Rivera and not run into a Flores,” said Frank Blanco, 45, also a longtime youth football and baseball coach in the area.

The family helped organize fund-raisers for sports teams and school bake sales. The elder Sylvia Flores taught religion classes at nearby St. Hilary Catholic Church.

“She’s a wonderful mother, there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for her children. She drove them everywhere,” said Mary Diaz, director of religious education at the church.

In their beige minivan, dubbed “the team bus” by neighbors, the Flores family went from game to game, attempting to keep up with the children’s schedules. But they also reserved time most Sunday mornings for Mass at St. Hilary’s, friends said.

Diaz said Sylvia and Richard Flores adored each other. “It’s just the way he treated her,” Diaz said, adding that Richard embraced Sylvia’s nieces and agreed to adopt them after their mother died. “It takes a special man to have your own children and say, ‘OK, we’ll raise your nieces too.’ ”

Neighborhood children pass through school together--Valencia Elementary, Rivera Middle School and El Rancho High School--and the Floreses were no exception.

The family cheered each other at games. Esperanza Flores was a volleyball and basketball star at El Rancho High School before entering the University of Laverne,

where she had just finished her freshman year as a member of the women’s basketball team.

Fond of Basketball

“Her family was always here at all the games,” said the team’s coach, Julie Kline. “I think her love for basketball came from her dad primarily. It was really important that she do well for her dad.”

Like Esperanza, Sylvia--who would have been 14 on Sunday--was a blooming sports star. She dreamed of playing in the Women’s National Basketball Assn. and often wore a jersey of the Sparks, the WNBA’s Los Angeles team. She played on several basketball teams, including those of the YMCA and Pico Rivera Parks and Recreation. On Thursday night, during an El Rancho High School summer basketball game, friends said, she scored the last basket.

Joining her on the team was Monica. Of course, the girls’ parents were in the stands, cheering--along with the girls’ grandmother and an uncle.

According to her friends Libby Martin Del Campo and Siuna Morales, Sylvia was a tomboy who played football and basketball with the boys. She also was ambitious academically, said Del Campo, who carried a picture of her and Sylvia at their graduation from middle school last month. Sylvia was in a preparatory algebra class this summer at El Rancho High School in anticipation of her freshman year.

Her younger brother, Matthew, played Pop Warner football. He also was in summer school, preparing for fifth grade.

Described as a hard worker who was good in math, he had struggled with reading. “But this year was his year for improvement,” said one of his Valencia Elementary School teachers, Mary Castleberry. “He started out hardly reading anything. He came up to a third grade level. It’s just a tremendous leap. I was really proud of him for that.”

Matthew also was a computer whiz. “If your computer breaks down, he can fix it,” Castleberry said. “He’s just a pleasant boy. I really enjoyed having him in class.”

His older brother, Richard, also was going to summer school. At 17, a solid C student, he was earning some school credits before going into his senior year at El Rancho.

He liked to dye his hair blond or red and wore a T-shirt featuring the face of his favorite wrestler, the Ruck. Blink 182 was his favorite music group, and he plastered his backpack with Blink 182 patches.

“He was a nice guy who never put anybody down and liked to make his classmates laugh,” said his friend Chris Marshall, who had known Richard since sixth grade at Rivera Middle School. “We played basketball for kicks. He talked about graduating and going to college.”

Richard was looking forward to attending a party tonight, Chris said.

About 300 people carrying candles held a vigil behind police tape Friday night, at one point forming a huge prayer circle. As they prayed, coroner’s officials began removing the four bodies from the house.

A memorial fund has been established for the family at Pacific Western National Bank, 8810 E. Whittier Blvd., Pico Rivera, CA 90640.

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Times staff writers Carla Hall, Elise Gee, Hugo Martin, Joe Mathews, Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Beth Shuster, and Times correspondent Richard Winton contributed to this story.

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Community Ties

The Flores family has strong ties in Pico Rivera, where the three slain children attended schools and played sports.