This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

A US man shot his wife and five young children dead before turning the gun on himself after claiming that he and his wife had planned the killings after they lost their jobs at a hospital.

"Why leave our children in someone else's hands," Ervin Lupoe wrote in a letter sent to the KABC-TV television channel's website.

The station called police after receiving the fax, and officers arrived at the family home in Wilmington, between Los Angeles and Long Beach within minutes of the killings.

The body of Lupoe's wife, Ana, was found in an upstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple's twin two-year-old boys.

The bodies of an eight-year-old girl and twin five-year-old girls were found alongside Ervin Lupoe's in another bedroom. All had been shot in the head, some multiple times, the local coroner's assistant chief, Ed Winter, said.

Lupoe removed three of his children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas. The Kaiser Permanente medial centre, in west Los Angeles, released a statement confirming both Lupoe and his wife had worked there as medical technicians.

"We are deeply saddened to hear of the deaths of the Lupoe family," it said in a statement.

Lupoe's letter claimed he and his wife had been fired and that she suggested they kill themselves and their children. Police did not release further details.

The letter indicated that Lupoe and his wife had been under investigation for misrepresenting their employment to an outside agency in order to obtain childcare.

He claimed that, on 23 December, an administrator had told the couple: "You should not even had bothered to come to work today – you should have blown your brains out."

The Lupoes complained and were eventually offered an apology but were fired two days later, according to the letter.

The Kaiser Permanente statement made no comment on the claims.

In October, a Los Angeles man beset by financial worries shot his wife, three children and mother-in-law dead before turning the gun on himself.

Karthik Rajaram, a father of three, was a former employee of major accounting firms but had been unemployed for several months.