The Really Weird Part
POETS CORNERS
Pleasant Hill CA
The dead were identified as Noel and Josephine Ridual, both
28,
Maria Teresa
"Ola" Marquicias, 32, and Silva, the apparent shooter.
Riduals' 18-month-old daughter, Jessica, was in critical but
stable condition at
San Francisco General Hospital
from a large-caliber gunshot wound that apparently passed
through her body back to front.
Oberhoffer, among the first to arrive at the cream-colored
home at 33
De Montfort
Ave. after victims' relatives called police at 1:20 p.m.
Sunday, said officers found a scene of "incredible carnage."
"When I went inside, there were four bodies on the main floor
of the upstairs flat, all within 15 feet of each other,"
Oberhoffer said. "The baby had already been taken to the
hospital. She was sitting in one of those child chairs at the
dining room table. She was shot while in the chair. It
appeared to be an interrupted dinner scene with the bodies
leading to the back bedroom."
The body of Josephine Ridual was face up on the dining room
floor, shot in the head. Noel Ridual, who taught math at
Abraham Lincoln High School
, was dead inside the back bedroom door, also face up and shot
in the head. The body of Marquicias, who taught special
education
at Balboa High, was found face up in the bed in the bedroom.
She was believed to have been shot in the chest or head.
Also in the bedroom was Silva's body, "with his head blown off
and a gun at his feet," Oberhoffer said. The wound appeared to
be self-inflicted, he said.
The apparent murder and suicide weapon was a .357 Magnum
revolver found with Silva's body.
Other members of the extended family living in the two-story
house said they heard five or six shots. Silva's mother, Maria
Silva, went to the second-floor flat, discovered the bodies
and called police, as did another relative in the house,
police said.
Oberhoffer said the scene inside and outside the house quickly
became chaotic as grieving relatives, friends and neighbors
converged.
"There were lots of heated emotions and grieving," he said.
"Here was a whole family gone. It was bad, more so because of
the proximity of family and the youth of the victims."
The entire block of De Montfort Avenue in this working class
neighborhood was cordoned off for several hours as
investigators worked inside the home. Outside, gawkers lined
the streets as family and friends of the dead arrived on the
scene.
Family in disbelief
"I can't believe it," said Silva's tearful brother Silvestre,
who lives in Hercules but since 1975 has owned the home where
the deaths occurred. "My brother was nervous for a long time.
I'm not sure what really happened."
Lorenzo Silva, his mother, sister and brother-in-law,
Buenventura Lirios
, lived in the downstairs unit, while the Riduals and
Marquicias rented the flat upstairs.
During the summer, Noel Ridual brought his wife Josephine and
daughter Jessica from the Philippines. His wife had been
hoping to eventually become a teacher as well, friends said.
Marquicias and Ridual were in the same teaching program, which
brings educators from other countries into San Francisco
classrooms for a five-year teaching stint. She moved into the
Riduals' unit in February.
The Silva family, including Lorenzo Silva's wife, came to San
Francisco from the Philippines in 1972. Lorenzo Silva's wife
moved back to the Philippines last year for undisclosed
reasons.
Silvestre Silva
said his brother recently had suffered anxiety attacks. "He
was so sick. (At times) he sounded like he was drowning.
"I couldn't believe he would do this. He's not aggressive.
He's very cool. I don't know why he did this. The people
upstairs were his friends."
For several months, Silvestre Silva - a devout Catholic -
tried to persuade his brother to go to a priest who he thought
could rescue him from his mental problems.
"He was on medications," Silva said. "It's weird. He was like
a guy who was scared of everything."
At the urging of his family, Lorenzo Silva went to the
Philippines last year in hopes of finding a healer to
alleviate his emotional turmoil. "He went there, but didn't
get treatment," Silvestre Silva said.
Relatives said Silva kept several weapons in his flat, but
apparently only one gun was used in the slayings. Guards at
SFO, where Silva had worked for about 20 years, do not carry
weapons. The airport is patrolled by armed members of the
San Francisco Police Department
's airport unit. Silva had worked the graveyard shift before
returning home Sunday morning.
Airport officials were not available Monday morning to discuss
whether they knew of Silva's alleged mental troubles or if he
had had any job problems.
Silva apparently did not have any police record. Oberhoffer
said a computer search of police records revealed no previous
trouble calls to the family's home near
City College
.
Victims remembered
Shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday, coroner's aides carried out the
four bodies as neighbors, family and friends looked on.
Throughout the evening friends continued to arrive, wanting to
know more about what had taken place.
"Ola was vivacious," said former Balboa
High School Dean Fay Vickroy
, whom Marquicias lived with when she first arrived from the
Philippines in 1998. "She has two kids in the Philippines."
The Vickroys often saw the Riduals on Sundays at St.
Emydius Church
, about a block away from the De Montfort address.
Lirios, 67, Lorenzo Silva's brother-in-law, was downstairs
watching TV with his mother-in-law when he heard about half a
dozen gunshots.
"I didn't think it was Lorenzo," Lirios said. "I was scared. I
knew they were gunshots. Lorenzo was himself (in the morning).
I knew he was taking medications."
Neighbor Michael Gorley, who has lived next door for seven
months, said the shots came in two groups about 30 seconds
apart.
According to Silva's family and friends, he had been married
35 years but his wife, Luz Silva, recently returned to the
Philippines. Family said the couple had been separated for
some time.
Diane Alexander
said she didn't even look outside when she heard the fire
engines racing down the street because there is a station so
close to their home she figured they must be going out on a
nearby call. When the sirens continued to blare, she looked
out the window and knew it was something serious. Shootings
happen "over the hill where they sell drugs."
"But here, it's always cool," Alexander said. "It's a good
neighborhood." <
