Santa Barbara County sheriff’s investigators have provided the first details of the gruesome scene at an apartment near San Marcos High School where an apparent murder-suicide occurred early Friday.
Camino de Vida stabbing crime scene from Giana Magnoli on Vimeo.
By late Friday morning, the bodies of two victims — a man and a woman who appeared to be in their 20s — remained on an upstairs landing at an apartment complex in the 100 block of Camino De Vida, across Turnpike Road from the San Marcos campus. A blue tarp was put up to shield the scene from the rain. They were removed by coroner’s officials at about 12:30 p.m., and autopsies were pending.
Investigators from the Sheriff’s Department and the state Department of Justice Crime Lab spent much of Friday poring over the scene, collecting evidence and taking photos and videos.
“It doesn’t appear to be any forced entry,” sheriff’s Lt. Steve Johnson told Noozhawk. “There are several areas where there is a large amount of blood in the apartment.”
Both victims suffered multiple stab wounds, Johnson said, but investigators have not determined their exact causes of death.
Investigators found a possible weapon inside the apartment — a knife — but had not confirmed that it was used in the killings, Johnson said.
Deputies were called to the apartment complex at about 2:30 a.m. for a report of a stabbing, Johnson said.
“Obviously the two decedents are on the front door step, and that’s what deputies encountered when they arrived,” he said.
Inside the apartment, the deputies rescued the woman who reported the stabbings. She also had been stabbed, and the woman was taken to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital for treatment of injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening, Johnson said.
Another woman who was sleeping in the apartment was uninjured, Johnson said.
He said the three woman shared the apartment, and the woman who died may have had a prior relationship with the dead man.
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton and staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com and gmagnoli@noozhawk.com, respectively. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.