Police arrest, ID suspect in quadruple slaying in Sacramento

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) -- Police on Friday identified and arrested a suspect in connection with the quadruple slaying, including two children, in a south Sacramento home on Thursday.

Salvador Vasquez-Oliva, 56, of Sacramento, was arrested Friday on homicide-related charges in relation to this case. He was being held at the Sacramento County Jail after he was taken into custody at an apartment complex in San Francisco on Pierce Street and Golden Gate Avenue, police said.

After police found the bodies, investigators quickly singled out the suspect and he was likely known by the victims, Sacramento police Sgt. Bryce Heinlein said.

"Preliminarily this does not appear to be a random act," Heinlein said Thursday. 

The four victims were discovered when police broke into a home in the 1100 block of 35th Avenue in the South Land Park neighborhood of Sacramento after a relative reported that something might be wrong.

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Police did not immediately identify the victims or provide their genders or ages, and say they have not yet determined a motive for the killings. 

Kelly Fong Rivas, deputy chief of staff for Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, said police told officials that two of the victims were children but did not provide other details.

A neighbor, Rita Munoz, told the Sacramento Bee that a couple with kids 11 and 14 years old live in the house. 

The mayor called the crime horrifying and extremely tragic in a statement praising police for quickly making an arrest.

The single-story beige home with sculpted shrubbery has a basketball hoop in a driveway that police blocked off with yellow crime scene tape.

It's located in a tree-lined residential neighborhood of neatly maintained homes near a church.

It was unclear when the victims were killed, Heinlein said. Police also weren't saying how they were killed.

There were no reports of shots fired or other problems until the relative called police to report that he was concerned, Heinlein said.

A few neighbors looked on curiously as homicide detectives and crime scene investigators made their way in and out of the home south of the state Capitol.

Don Sherrill, whose home shares a back fence with the victims' house, said he and his wife, Joanne Sherrill, often heard children playing in the backyard or using an inflatable pool.

"The young kids really enjoyed the backyard and swimming in the summer time," Joanne Sherrill told the Bee.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.