News of Doom 2.0

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A man distraught because he could not find work shot and killed his mother-in-law, his wife and three sons and then killed himself inside a home in an upscale San Fernando Valley neighborhood, police said.

Police say Karthik Rajaram left suicide notes taking responsibility for the murders of his family.

Authorities said the man had an MBA in finance but appeared to have been unemployed for several months and had worked for major accounting firms, such as Price Waterhouse.

The shootings were discovered after 8:20 a.m. Monday, after a neighbor called police to report that the wife had failed to pick her up to take her to her job at a pharmacy, Deputy Chief of Police Michel Moore said.

Ed Winter, assistant chief from the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, identified the suspect as Karthik Rajaram, 45.

Winter said the victims included Rajaram's mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, and his 19-year-old son Krishna Rajaram, a Fulbright Scholar and honor student at UCLA.

Also dead were Rajaram's wife, 39, Subasari Rajaram, and their two other sons, 12 and 7. Some of the victims had been shot more than once, and their identities were not immediately confirmed, he said.

"Due to the nature of their injuries, it's been a little difficult," Winter said, adding that there were no signs of a struggle.

Police first found the mother-in-law shot in her bed in a downstairs bedroom, Moore said.

Upstairs, the couple's eldest son was shot in the master bedroom; the wife in another bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head; the two younger sons in the bedroom they shared, both shot in the head. The 12-year-old was on the floor and the 7-year-old in bed, Moore said. The suspect was also in that bedroom, a gun still in his hand.

Inside the house, police also found three letters, one to law enforcement acknowledging responsibility for the killings, a second to friends and relatives and a third that appears to be the suspect's will, Moore said.

"He attests to some financial difficulties, and he takes responsibility for the taking of the lives of his family members and himself as a result of those financial difficulties," Moore said.

Neighbors, family and friends told police that the suspect, who had not worked for several months, had said in recent days he was having had extreme financial difficulties, Moore said.

One of the letters, intended for friends and marked "personal and confidential," detailed his financial transactions that resulted in "an unfortunate, downward spiral," Moore said.

"His narrative is one of talking about this tragedy befalling him and his contemplation of an available exit or solution," Moore said. "One is taking his own life and the other is taking the lives of his family and himself. ... He talked himself into the second strategy, believing that was, in effect, the honorable thing to do."

Moore said the several-page narrative appeared to have been written over a period of time. "This was something that was not a spur-of-the-moment type of event," he said.

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday demanded an immediate investigation into why a 5-year-old South Los Angeles boy suffered "unbearable" abuse for two years without detection by authorities or social service agencies.

And, on the same day, Los Angeles police announced the arrest of a third suspect in the case -- a 26-year-old babysitter who they say disfigured the boy's hands by burning them on a stove.

Police say that La Tanya Monikue Jones also conspired with the boy's mother, Starkeisha Brown, 24, and her live-in girlfriend, Krystal Denise Matthews, 21, to hide the abuse.

Nonetheless, Brown and Matthews shared their small South L.A. apartment with Brown's 5-year-old son. Over a two-year period, authorities said, the boy endured "unbearable psychological and physical abuse," including cigarette burns, near-starvation and beatings. The conditions went undetected by county officials until an anonymous caller alerted them earlier this month.

Brown appears to have regained custody of her son when she left prison in January 2007. But that March, a judge issued an arrest warrant for her in connection with parole violations. It is unclear why officials could not locate her.

Matthews also has a criminal history, including convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and forgery. In May, Matthews got into a fight with her younger brother, slashing him in the face with a box-cutter. She was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty.

Los Angeles police said the 5-year-old was hung by his hands and wrists from a doorjamb and beaten with some sort of leash or chain. He was routinely denied food and water, burned with cigarettes on his body and genitals, and left to sit in his own urine and feces.