When police arrived at the home at Fairhaven St. and Crescent Ave., officers discovered the bodies of the boy's parents and found his 3-year-old brother wounded and hiding in the back yard.
A family friend told Eyewitness News they think financial troubles may have led up to the shooting.
The shooting occurred Sunday night. Anaheim Police detectives got involved Monday morning when a young boy called 911.
Anaheim Police arrived more than 12 hours after the shooting. Police received a report Sunday of shots fired as the caller drove by the house at around 8 p.m. Police say they turned up nothing in response to that call.
Monday, a person who works with the couple came to the house to check on them when they did not show up for work in the morning. The friend noticed the couple's 5-year-old son was hiding by some trash cans.
Police entered the house and found the husband and wife, dead, in the back yard in an apparent murder-suicide.
"We got a 911-transfer call from the highway patrol," said Anaheim Police Sgt. Tim Schmidt. "At that point, there was a 5-year-old on the phone that said his mom and dad had been shot and that his dad had tried to shoot him, and he was asking, obviously, for assistance. So we immediately had officers dispatched to the scene. When they got here, they interviewed the 5-year-old, and within minutes they learned that there was possibly a third victim inside, being his younger brother."
Filomeno Adarna says he knows the family and works with them. Shocked over what happened at the house, he said there was never any indication that something was wrong with the family. He said he was hanging out with them on Sunday afternoon.
But he added the couple indicated to him that they were going through tough financial times.
"Six months ago they applied for a loan modification, and it was denied, and they could not find more," said Adarna. "They lost a bit of money or something. Personal financial problems, because their business was slowing down. But they were working hard. That's why they [were] open seven days a week."
The 3-year-old suffered three gunshot wounds, one each to the stomach, clavicle and chest. He was transported to UCI Medical Center in critical condition. The wounds are now considered non-life-threatening. While the 3-year-old recovers from a gunshot wound, his older brother is with police.
"He's with us currently at the Anaheim Police Dept.," said Schmidt. "We're interviewing him. We've got family support services involved from Orange County services trying to help with this incident together."
Filomeno Adarna identified the married couple as Wayne and Hermie Zickefoose. They have an auto-services business in Buena Park.
