BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — It has been 17 days since 4 people were killed in Mojave with still no word from the Kern County Sheriff's Office about who may be responsible.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood says residents in Mojave should not be concerned about the killer or killers in the quadruple homicide investigation striking again. According to Youngblood, detectives believe this case was an isolated incident, and they suspect the killer or killers had a specific reason for taking the victims' lives.
"Obviously from the lifestyle of the residents. We found some drug paraphernalia," said Youngblood. "This has the implications of a drug house, and bad things happen in places like this."
Youngblood says detectives know what type of gun was used in the case, but the agency did not share that information with the public and has not provided any details. He adds that detectives are dealing with an abundance of evidence.
"There's just a lot to this case that's going to take time. You have fingerprints, you have blood spatter, you have blood samples," lists Youngblood. "You have all kinds of forensic evidence, and it takes time to weed through that."
While this case takes priority for KCSO, Youngblood explains that a lack of sufficient staff means detectives are working multiple cases at once. According to Youngblood, KCSO has not received help from other agencies at this time, but if the shooter or shooters leave the state, KCSO can request assistance from outside Kern County.
"'We have no reason to believe our suspect or suspects have left the State of California' would be a better way of putting it," clarified Youngblood. "If we had that type of information, we would probably use other agencies."
Youngblood says there's no timeline for when they expect to be able to release new information to the public because they can't rush this investigation, but he says KCSO will share new information when they can make an arrest.
"Every time we have one of these, we have several family members for each victim who are traumatized by this, and… it really is. It's sad," said Youngblood.
KCSO is continuing to request that anyone with additional information about this homicide investigation please contact the sheriff's office at 861-3110 or call Kern Secret Witness at 322-4040.
