Luis Tovar lived for his family.
An avid man outdoors, the 50-year-old man used to carry them on his fifth wheel to camp in Arizona. He put them on the back of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to ride across the hills above Fullerton. They spent every fourth of July, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas gathered at their home in northeastern Anaheim.
And when he launched Unified Homes in 2006 with the goal of helping people buy, sell and renovate their prefabricated houses, it was appropriate for his family to be a part of that too. But this week, a business he built from scratch became the scene of a tragedy.
On Wednesday, an armed man entered the commercial building on West Lincoln Avenue and opened fire, killing Tovar; his daughter Genevieve Raygoza, 28; longtime employee Letícia Solis Guzman, 58; and Matthew Farias, 9, Genevieve’s half-brother.
Matthew’s mother, Blanca Tamayo, who is also Genevieve’s mother, was injured and remains in critical condition. She also worked at Unified Homes. When the police arrived, they found Tamayo’s arms around his son, according to the Tovar family.
The suspect, Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44, faces several counts of murder and attempted murder, along with improvements in crime. Gonzalez had two children with a former Unified Homes employee, the Tovar family said.
In one day, Vania Tovar, 28, had her father, stepsister and members of her large, close-knit family extinct.
“My dad was everything to us,” she said through tears on Friday. “He was the kindest person. Whenever someone needed something, even if they hadn’t seen them in years, he was willing to give them the shirt he was wearing. Our whole family is so confused. They were so innocent in all of this. ”
Luis Tovar was from Orange County. He was so loved at Anaheim High School that the students crowned him as the prom king in his senior year. He later graduated and got a master’s degree in business administration and finance from Cal State Fullerton and talked about doing a doctorate in law, according to his family.
As a father, Tovar had a set of strict rules for his five children. He expected them to eat well, get good grades and work hard. He was much softer with his six grandchildren.
Luis Tovar is surrounded by his daughters Genevieve Raygoza, Thalia Tovar and Vania Tovar. Luis Tovar and Genevieve Raygoza were among the people killed in Wednesday’s shooting.
(Courtesy Vania Tovar)
“Waffles and ice cream – this is what he considered a good breakfast for his grandchildren,” said Vania Tovar.
Kennedy Gonzalez, 21, said he felt a mixture of anger and sadness when he learned that one of the victims of the mass shooting was an old family friend – Luis Tovar.
“He was a good man, a family man,” said Gonzalez. “He always took care of my family.”
Luis Tovar was especially close to his daughter Genevieve Raygoza, who Vania Tovar described as “the sun on a cloudy day”.
Father and daughter shared a love of the outdoors and a passion for their business. She worked for him as a transaction manager at Unified Homes for a decade. Her husband, Armando Raygoza, works in construction.
But the couple’s story started long before they became colleagues. The friendship blossomed in love within a calculus classroom at Fullerton College. Genevieve Raygoza caught Armando’s attention the moment he entered the classroom.
“She was beautiful. I saw her and immediately knew that I had to sit as close to her as I could,” he said. “She had everything – beauty and intelligence – and a huge heart.”
When the instructor suggested that colleagues exchange information to work collaboratively on tasks, she surprised him by asking for the phone number before he could ask for hers. After two years of dating, they had their first child – a child they called Nathaniel. They married a few years later and welcomed their second son, Andrés.
For Armando, it is the everyday moments – the bike rides to the park with her children or the way she lay next to them reading stories to sleep night after night – that mean more.
“We should grow old together,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Luis always told us to enjoy life because we don’t know how much time we have together, but we don’t think it would be that short.”
Leticia Solis Guzman, who was among those killed in the violence, was a longtime sales executive at Unified Homes. In her Facebook profile picture, Solis is next to Luis Tovar’s daughters in front of a giant Christmas tree in what appears to be the family’s living room. The top of Solis’ Facebook page says in Spanish: “I am a Lion, a warrior, cool, happy, I love to dance, I love my family and happiness.”
The Solis family was not immediately available for comment. Yolanda Torres, an acquaintance of Solis, said she did not know what happened to her until Friday.
“Honestly, that was hard to accept,” she said. “She was an excellent person that I was fortunate to meet. This was frankly difficult news, we are living in such difficult times. “
The day of the shooting was one of the days when Matthew Farias, 9, accompanied his mother to work at Unified Homes instead of going to daycare, said his aunt Rosie Farias on Friday. Hoover Elementary School in Santa Ana, where Matthew was in third grade, is doing distance learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fermin Leal, communications director for the Santa Ana Unified School District, said in a statement that the district is “heartbroken by [the] act of senseless violence ”that claimed Matthew’s life.
Matthew’s death is like the loss of one of his own children, said Rosie Farias. She lives just two miles from Ralph Farias, her younger brother and Matthew’s father, in Santa Ana. Before the pandemic, her children spent almost every weekend together. Matthew enjoyed every moment he spent with his family, she said.
“He sometimes didn’t want to leave, it was at my house, my husband, my sister, my brother. It didn’t matter, he just wanted to stay there longer. He just loved the family, ”she said.
Although the boy’s death has shaken his family, Rosie Farias says she is more concerned about Ralph. Matthew was his only son. She said he looks sad and lost – his eyes are watery – but she doesn’t think the reality has hit him completely. She suspects that this will change when he goes to the coroner’s office.
“I feel like that’s when everything is going to fall apart,” she said. “He’s going to come home – alone.”
The Times librarian, Cary Schneider, contributed to this report.