A man residing in Thousand Oaks, an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, California, was found dead with his seven-year-old child in an apparent murder-suicide.
The man, identified as Blaine Paddock, was discovered lifeless alongside his young son, whose identity has been withheld, at their residence on Chiquita Lane. A concerned individual placed a 911 call just before 7 pm on Tuesday, May 30, alerting authorities about a potential suicide at the location.
Responding deputies arrived at the scene to find Paddock and his son unresponsive in the house. While emergency medical personnel declared the father deceased on-site, the child was transported to Los Robles Regional Medical Center, where doctors pronounced him dead.
Following the discovery, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office enlisted the Medical Examiner’s Office’s assistance to conduct autopsies on Paddock and his son. The results revealed that the child’s cause of death was strangulation, and Paddock’s death was attributed to ligature strangulation, attributed to hanging. Authorities classified Paddock’s death as a suicide.
To get further information, detectives from the Sheriff’s office executed a search warrant at Paddock’s home. While the specifics of their findings have not been disclosed, no indications of additional suspects linked to the murder-suicide have emerged during the investigation.
