Four young people were found fatally shot in an RV in a Mojave Desert community in California.
On Monday, May 1, law enforcement reported that the victims were three women and one man, identified as Anna Marie Hester, 34, Darius Travon Canada, 31, Martina Barraza Jr., 33, all of Mojave, and Faith Leighanne Rose Asbury, 20, of California City.
Although no arrests have been made, law enforcement is searching for certain individuals for questioning as “persons of interest.”
The tragic event marks the 19th mass killing of 2023, surpassing the previous highest count through the end of April since at least 2006. A database of mass killings defines it as the deliberate killing of four or more people, without counting the perpetrator among the victims.
The year 2023 has witnessed an alarming frequency of approximately one mass killing per week. Among the recent instances of violence, a 38-year-old man fatally shot five people inside his neighbor’s house after he declined a request to stop shooting rounds at night when the father complained that his baby was sleeping.
Kern County deputies responded to reports of a shooting in an abandoned lot on H Street in Mojave at around 11:20 p.m. on Sunday. Officers discovered the four victims with gunshot wounds to their heads. According to the Kern County coroner, three individuals had died at the scene, while Asbury was taken to a hospital, where she died on May 1.
The sheriff’s office stated that detectives have conducted multiple interviews and are pursuing all leads to identify and apprehend the perpetrator(s) responsible for the crime.
A long-term area resident interviewed by media said that the town was having problems with drug abuse victims and that it was getting worse. “They’re all on crystal meth,” he said. “This is all part of drugs, sad to say.”
