Men Charged in 'Grisly' Triple Homicide Knew Victims' Daughter as 'Furries,' Friends Say
Two men were charged Tuesday in the triple homicide of a couple and their friend at a house in Fullerton, California, PEOPLE confirms.
While police have said they don’t believe the violence was “random,” family friends tell PEOPLE the suspects and the family knew each other through the “furry” community.
Joshua Charles Acosta, 21, and Frank Sato Felix, 25, were both charged with three felony counts of special circumstances murder for the shooting deaths of Jennifer Goodwill Yost, 39, her 34-year-old husband Christopher Yost and the couple’s friend, Arthur William Boucher, 28. The Yost’s two young daughters, ages 6 and 9, were at home during the rampage but were unharmed.
Acosta, reportedly a soldier in the Army, is also charged with sentencing enhancements for the personal discharge of a firearm.
If convicted, Acosta and Felix have a minimum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Shortly after the Yosts’ bodies were discovered, detectives learned that their 17-year-old daughter, Katlynn, was missing from the family home. She was later located in Los Angeles County, California.
The district attorney’s office did not comment on possible charges against a 17-year-old girl who was also detained after the killings. Police would not disclose whether the 17-year-old in custody was the Yosts’ daughter.
• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
Suspects and Daughter Were ‘Furries’
Fullerton Police Department Sgt. Jon Radus previously told PEOPLE that investigators “are looking at what the connection may or not be between the 17-year-old juvenile as well as the adults in connection with the house.”
“We do not believe this was a random act of violence,” he said. “We believe that the individuals who committed this crime specifically sought out this residence and the people inside.”
Friends tell PEOPLE that Acosta and Felix were friends with Katlynn and were all involved in the “furry” community, where participants dress up in colorful animal costumes and meet at conventions. Jennifer also attended furry events, they said.
“I met her at a meet about a year ago or so, but she always brought a smile to everyone she talked to,” friend Kristopher Reyes tells PEOPLE of Jennifer. “She was such a sweet woman and always there to help. She was always so kind to everyone and would talk to everyone. She was almost like a second mother to me.”
Reyes said both Felix, who went by the furname “Entey,” and Acosta had been in charge of a “furmeet” held at a park near Los Angeles. But a family friend, who asked not to be identified, tells PEOPLE that Felix had recently been banned from the Yost household.
“I remember Jen telling me a couple of weeks ago that she told Katlynn that she wasn’t allowed to hang out with him [Felix], and she also told him he wasn’t allowed to hang around Katlynn because he was a unhealthy person,” the friend says.
“It is a parent thing,” the friend continues. “[Felix] just made some poor decisions around the daughter. He did something in front of the daughter self-harm wise, and it upset her very badly, because nobody wants to see their friend do that. She told her mom and her mom told the dad and dad and mom said, 'We don’t want you hanging around him anymore.’ ”
The friend says that the Yosts had “concerns” and were looking out for Katlynn – “it has nothing to do with being a furry.”
“If it did have something to do with being a furry, I think they would have forbidden their daughter from that lifestyle,” the friend says. “It had to do with having good social boundaries and being able to choose your friends wisely.”
Of the suspects, the friend says, “I knew the accused. I would have never in a million years thought they were capable of murder. They didn’t seem like they would be able to do something like that. They didn’t seem like bad people. A little disturbed maybe but honestly, in this day and age, who isn’t?”
A 'Grisly’ Scene
Prosecutors say that early on Sept. 24, Acosta and Felix allegedly entered the Yost home and fatally shot the couple as well as Boucher. Accosta is accused of being the triggerman.
Inside the home, police discovered the couple’s two youngest daughters, unharmed.
“It was a grisly crime scene, and just to imagine two children to have to wake up expecting to see mom or dad and start their Saturday morning like most kids do, to see what they saw would be difficult for anyone in law enforcement – let alone two children,” Sgt. Radus told PEOPLE.
Felix was picked up Sunday morning in Sun Valley, California, a suburb of Los Angeles County. Acosta was taken into custody in Fort Irwin, California.
It was not immediately clear if they have entered pleas to their charges or retained attorneys. They are scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 28.
'There’s a Lot of Hate in This Act’
“It is kind of surreal,” Christopher Yost’s cousin Stacy Businger tells PEOPLE of the killings. “There was a lot of hate in this act, and we can’t understand why. Chris never hated anyone. It is just a lot of pain going on right now.”
Businger says a
account has been set up for the couple’s two youngest daughters. “We need to raise money to help support these girls,” she says. “It is not just right now, it is a lifetime of help they are going to need, and it is just sad they have to go through this at all.”
Meanwhile, those who knew the Yosts best are in mourning.
Jennifer was described as a devoted stay-at-home mom with an artistic eye. “She was always into art, design and all kinds of stuff,” says her childhood friend Suzanne Guerra. “She made her own necklaces.”
Jennifer ran an online store called Vixie’s Creations, selling crystals, hand-sewn pillows and stuffed animals, and would regularly post about cooking for her family on Facebook. (The day before her death, she wrote about “making stuff lasagna noodles stuffed with Italian hot sausage.”)
Her husband, Chris, was her soulmate, Guerra says. “Before Chris, I never saw her settling down and being happy with one relationship – and she fell hard for Chris. She was madly in love with him.”
Chris, who family members called “Bubba,” was a family man who loved tinkering with cars and playing the drums. “He was a really good man,” Businger tells PEOPLE.
Boucher’s uncle, Salvador Mineo, previously described his nephew as a “good kid” who worked at Mountain High and Taco Bell.
Melinda Giles, a family friend, says the Yosts had recently helped her and her son move into a new place. “Chris put my son’s bunk bed together. They helped me unpack,” she says. “I asked, 'How can I repay you?’ And they said, 'This is what we do, we help people. Return the goodness back to the world.’ That is what they said to me. They were good people.”
