The victims of the mass shooting in Orange were connected via a mobile home where the violence occurred.
One was a former prom king who started the business. Another was his daughter. A third was an old employee. The fourth was a 9-year-old boy whose mother worked in the office and was seriously injured by the sniper on Wednesday.
Here are their stories:
Luis tovar
He launched Unified Homes in 2006 with the goal of helping people buy, sell and renovate their prefabricated houses and brought his family to help manage it.
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.
Tovar was an Orange County native. 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.
“My father was everything to us,” said his daughter Vania Tovar. “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. “
Genevieve Raygoza
She was the daughter of Luis Tovar.
Vania Tovar described it as “the sun on a cloudy day”.
Father and daughter shared a love of the outdoors and a passion for their business. Genevieve Raygoza 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. Friendship blossomed in love in a calculus classroom at Fullerton College. Genevieve 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.
“We should grow old together,” said Armando. “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.”
Matthew Farias
The 9-year-old boy was Genevieve’s half-brother. He was the son of Blanca Tamayo, who worked at the company and was seriously injured by the sniper. Tamayo is also Genevieve’s mother.
The day of the shooting turned out to be one of the days when Matthew accompanied his mother to work at Unified Homes instead of going to daycare, said his aunt Rosie Farias on Friday.
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.”
Leticia Solis Guzman
She 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. “