six members of a family killed by Jobless Father

The only hints of trouble in the big beige house on Como Lane were the newspapers in the driveway and the lack of any activity behind the front door.

But when police summoned by worried friends of the residents got inside Monday, they found a horror — six members of a family fatally shot in a murder-suicide committed by an unemployed man in financial crisis.

The body of 45-year-old Karthik Rajaram, a gun clutched in one hand, was found by officers who followed a trail of carnage through the home in a gated community in the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley.

His victims, most slain in their beds, were his wife, three sons and his mother-in-law.
"Absolute devastation," Deputy Chief Michel Moore told reporters outside the home.
Investigators quickly found two suicide letters and a will, and determined that the man once worked for a major accounting firm and was at least the part-owner of a financial holding company.

"The source of it appears to be a financial state, a crisis if you will, that this man became embroiled in that has unfolded over the past weeks," Moore said.

The man wrote in his suicide letter that he felt he had two options — to just kill himself or to kill himself and his family — and decided the second option was more honorable, Moore said.

The bodies were found when officers were sent to make a check on the home Monday morning after the wife failed to show up at a neighbor's home to go to work as a pharmacy bookkeeper, Moore said.

Officers found the mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, dead in bed on the first floor. Upstairs, they found a 19-year-old son, Krishna Rajaram, dead in bed in the master bedroom.

The gunman's 39-year-old wife, Subasri, was found in another room, also apparently shot while sleeping, Moore said.

In an adjoining room, a 12-year-old son, Ganesha, was dead on the floor, and his 7-year-old brother, Arjuna, was dead in bed. Their father's body also was found there with a handgun "in his grasp," Moore said. The gun was purchased Sept. 16.

Coroner's assistant chief Ed Winter said the victims were shot multiple times.
The killings occurred some time between midnight Saturday and early Monday morning, Winter said.