Father convicted of murdering his 4 children and their grandmother in their Lancaster home

FILE - Neighbors react near a home where five bodies were found dead, in the city of Lancaster, Calif., on Nov. 29, 2021. A jury convicted a 32-year-old man Tuesday, March 12, 2024, in the 2021 slayings of his four children, including a boy not yet 2 years old and their grandmother, in Southern California. The slayings occurred in the family's home in Lancaster, a city in the Antelope Valley high desert community north of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)
Neighbors gather in November 2021 near the Lancaster house where the murders occurred. (Ringo H.W. Chiu / Associated Press)

A man was convicted this week of murdering his four children and their grandmother in their Lancaster home, according to authorities.

Germarcus Lamar David was convicted Tuesday of five counts of first-degree murder and three counts of assault on a child causing death, according to a Los Angeles County district attorney's office news release. David was also convicted of a special circumstance count of using a firearm.

On Nov. 28, 2021, David shot his four children to death in their home on Garnet Lane in Lancaster. Namyiah, 11; Germarcus Jr., 7; Kayden, 2; and 1-year-old Noah were found with gunshot wounds to their upper bodies. He also shot and killed the children's maternal grandmother, 51-year-old Ericka England.

David is expected to be sentenced April 24.

"We are committed to ensuring that Germarcus David will never harm another cherished grandmother or innocent child again," Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón said in the release. "Our hearts go out to the mother of the children, who has suffered the unimaginable loss of all her children and her own mother in this tragic ordeal."

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The children's mother was the one who found the victims, family members told KTLA days after the shooting.

England had been babysitting her grandchildren when David shot them all to death, investigators said.

The killings stunned neighbors on the quiet street, who said at the time that they had heard a woman screaming.

Neighbor Grace Beltran told The Times she heard a woman yell, “My babies are gone.”

David previously worked as a licensed security guard and had a firearm permit that was listed as canceled in 2020, according to the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services.

He turned himself over to the authorities after the shooting.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.