ROSEVILLE, Calif. — Law enforcement agencies in two California cities separated by more than 200 miles made a grisly discovery on Monday following the abrupt confession of a man claiming to have murdered four people.
Police in Roseville, just northeast of Sacramento, held a news conference on Monday evening. The agency said that it had been contacted by the Mt. Shasta Police Department shortly after noon on Monday, reporting that they had arrested a murder suspect.
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Mt. Shasta Police reported that a man had come into the station, telling the dispatcher at the front window that he killed someone and the body was inside his car parked outside of the police station. The dispatcher asked the man to repeat himself because she couldn't believe what he was saying. He did and willingly turned himself over to officers. Mt. Shasta Police Chief Parish Cross said he and another officer went outside to the car to verify what the man had said was true.
"These are things that just don't happen everyday and when they do it is upsetting," said Chief Cross . "I've been in the business a long time and I've seen a lot of unusual occurences, just upsetting occurences, but this one here is a whole new level. We are still in shock."
The man claimed to have murdered a total of four people — the remaining three of them left at his apartment in the 1800-block of Junction Boulevard in Roseville, near Sacramento. Following the tip from Mt. Shasta Police, officers in Roseville soon confirmed that there were three bodies left at the apartment.
At a news conference on Tuesday morning, Captain Josh Simon with the Roseville Police Department identified the suspect as 53-year-old Shankar Nagappa Hangud. He has since been transferred to the Placer County Jail near Sacramento.
Investigators believe that all four murder victims were related to Hangud. Two of them were adults and two were juveniles, although Cpt. Simon could not yet go into detail about their names and ages pending an autopsy.
The victim that was reportedly still in Hangud's car when he approached Mt. Shasta Police was one of the adults — a man of East Indian descent, Cpt. Simon said.
Police are still working on the timeline of events, but Cpt. Simon indicated that the four victims were murdered over the span of a few days, and Hangud and the other man may have left the Roseville apartment several days before arriving in Mt. Shasta. It was unclear whether the other man was alive for some or most of this time.
"Roseville is an extremely safe, family-oriented community," Cpt. Simon said. "This incident has touched the lives of many throughout our area. This is an evolving investigation that is less than 24 hours underway, we appreciate everyone's patience as we work to share more information as it becomes available."
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Roseville Police Department Investigations Unit at 916-746-1059.
