TULARE COUNTY -- The man who shot and killed four relatives last weekend, including his mother and 8-year-old daughter, later turned a weapon on himself, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department said Friday.
Hector Celaya Jr., 31, died of a combination of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and several shots by detectives, the Sheriff’s Department said in its autopsy report.
After the shootings last Saturday night on the Tule River Indian Reservation east of Porterville, Celaya drove off with two daughters.
Detectives tracked him down early Sunday morning and stopped him on a rural road north of Porterville, where Celaya was shot and fatally injured.
In addition to killing his family members, Celaya wounded his two other children.
Celaya’s 6-year-old son, Andrew, remained in critical condition Friday afternoon at Children’s Hospital Central California.
Celaya’s 5-year-old daughter, Linea, was shot once in the head.
She was released Thursday from Community Regional Medical Center, the Sheriff’s Department said.
Autopsy results released Friday revealed details about how Celaya killed his family members.
His 8-year-old daughter, Alyssa, died of several gunshots from close range. Her father took her with him when he fled the reservation; it wasn’t clear from the autopsy report when she died.
His mother, Irene Celaya, 60, died after being shot twice in the head. Multiple gunshots to the upper body killed her brother, Bernard Moreno, 53.
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