Police found three bodies inside a home in a gated community in Southern California on Friday night, after exchanging gunfire with a suspect who had barricaded himself inside the residence, according to reports.

The suspect was shot by police and later died at a hospital, FOX affiliate KKFX-CD of San Luis Obispo reported.

Authorities had been called to the home in Orcutt, an unincorporated area in Santa Barbara County, about 155 miles northwest of Los Angeles, after an unidentified woman entered the home, discovered a blood-soaked body in a bathtub, then ran out and called 911, the report said.

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Police responding to the scene had determined the person inside the home was armed with a rifle and that other people inside the home may have been injured, Santa Barbara station KSBY-TV reported.

“It became a situation where they needed to go in and rescue the people that were inside the home,” Kelly Hoover, a Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman, told Santa Barbara's Noozhawk.com.

Upon entering the residence, deputies “were in a position where they had to shoot the subject in order to subdue him,” she said.

It was not immediately clear how the three victims found inside the home had died.

“This is definitely a very tragic situation here,” Hoover said.

An earlier shelter in place order has been lifted for residents in Orcutt's Oak Hill Estates nearby the crime scene, Santa Barbara's KEYT-TV reported.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.