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The man who fatally shot four family members before taking his own life early Monday had been seething with jealousy that his wife was able to sponsor her relatives from Vietnam for visas while he could not, likely because of his felony record, a relative told the Bay Area News Group.

The frustrations took such a dark turn recently that he contacted his wife’s cousin with an ominous request.

“He called me and he said, ‘Would you take my daughter?’ ” the cousin, To V Khuat, said in an interview. “He said he was going to kill them. He had said things like this before, but I had always talked him down, calmed him down.”

The suspected gunman has been identified by law-enforcement sources and neighbors as 66-year-old Chi Dinh Ta. According to police, the black Springfield XD 9mm semiautomatic handgun Ta used in the massacre was reported stolen in Tucson, Arizona, in 2017. It remains unclear how Ta obtained the firearm.

Ta was barred from owning or possessing firearms or ammunition because of three 1988 felony convictions in Orange County for second-degree robbery, attempted second-degree robbery and criminal conspiracy. He served two years of a five-year prison sentence, earning credit for time served and good behavior, and was granted parole in 1990, according to records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

As investigators tried to piece together what triggered the shooting rampage, Khuat, whose wife is Ta’s cousin, said in an interview that the gunman had often spoken to him about his troubles with his family.

“He was jealous that his wife was able to sponsor her family and he was not able to bring his family here because of things in his record,” Khuat said. “That is the cause.”

San Jose police declined to comment on Khuat’s account or Ta’s motive, citing the ongoing investigation. The names of the victims — three women and one man — have not been released by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office, pending formal identification and notification of their next of kin, though all are believed to be family members. Ta’s wife and daughter were among several survivors who fled to safety at neighbors’ homes during the rampage.

Police found Ta dead in a side yard from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound around 1:25 a.m. Monday after officers entered his Habbitts Court home following reports of the shooting Sunday night. Two of the female victims were found dead in the home around the same time.

The other two victims — a man and a woman — initially survived the shooting and had been rushed to the hospital a few hours earlier after officers from patrol and the METRO special-enforcement unit launched a rescue operation, using a Bearcat armored vehicle for cover to take the wounded people to safety. Both of those victims died from their injuries later that night.

Officers at the scene said there was a chance that Ta may already have fatally wounded himself by the time police arrived, according to police dispatch recordings archived online.

Investigators have said the suspect has no known history of domestic violence. Ta’s only criminal history in Santa Clara County was a 1998 misdemeanor conviction for driving while intoxicated that has since been purged from his record.

Khuat said the slain family members “had just come from Vietnam” and “had not been here long.” He said they “were the nicest people” and “didn’t do anything” to Ta to provoke his anger.

“They were always nice to him,” Khuat said. “It was something in his mind, he snapped. I just found out about this. It is a terrible thing to hear.”

Maria Elena Upson, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Tuesday that due to privacy protections, the agency could not share, confirm or deny immigration information about specific people. When asked about whether a felony conviction could prevent someone from sponsoring relatives to come to the United States — as Khuat asserted — Upson declined to comment specifically on Ta but said the agency generally reviews immigration petitions on a case-by-case basis and on the merits of each individual situation.

On Tuesday, San Jose’s five female city council members — Sylvia Arenas, Magdalena Carrasco, Dev Davis, Maya Esparza and Pam Foley — issued a joint statement addressing the killings, suggesting that troubling “patterns of behavior” may have gone undetected given how domestic violence and sexual assault crimes “chronically go unreported” in immigrant communities. The council members have been outspoken about significantly increasing resources devoted to combating a rise in these crimes in San Jose.

“While we will refrain from arriving at conclusions without the benefit of a full and thorough investigation,” the statement reads, “we know that incidents like this do not arise overnight.”

Staff writer Mark Gomez contributed to this report.

If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers free, round-the-clock support, information and resources for help. Reach the lifeline at 800-273-8255.

Santa Clara County’s Crisis Hotline can be reached anonymously and confidentially at 1-855-278-4204 24 hours a day.