Man convicted in Southern California slayings of his 4 children and their grandmother in 2021

LANCASTER, Calif. (AP) — A jury has convicted a 32-year-old man in the 2021 slayings of his four children and their grandmother in Southern California.

Germarcus Lamar David was found guilty Tuesday of five counts of first-degree murder and three counts of assault on a child causing death, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.

The slayings occurred on Nov. 28, 2021, in the family’s home in Lancaster, a city in the Antelope Valley high desert north of Los Angeles. The neighborhood had already been decorated for Christmas when the violence broke out, shocking neighbors.

The grandmother, 51-year-old Ericka England, had been babysitting the children. Their mother returned home to find the bodies of her family and called 911.

A neighbor told The Associated Press in 2021 that a woman ran back and forth in their front yard that night, screaming, “My babies are gone! They’re all dead!”

The medical examiner identified the children as Namyiah David, 11; Germarcus David Jr., 7; Kaden David, 2; and Noah David, 19 months.

David’s defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Anna Brief, said Wednesday that she would not comment until after he is sentenced on April 24.

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David was a security guard who had posted online about following a good and religious life. He turned himself in to Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies within minutes of his wife’s arrival at the home.

David had a permit to carry a gun, but it expired in August 2020 and was listed as canceled, according to records from the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, which regulates the private security industry.

England, the children’s grandmother, had been a state corrections officer since 1997 and was employed by the state prison in Lancaster at the time she was killed, according to the union that represents corrections officers.