Two couples sharing a North Tabler Avenue home were killed in 2024, leaving relatives to rebuild families disrupted by the attack.
LANCASTER, Calif. — Christine Aca-ac and Edwin Garcia were planning a life together. Aca-ac’s brother, Janvi Maquindang, shared the home with his partner, Matthew Montebello. Relatives described the four as two young couples with close family ties before all four were killed inside their Lancaster residence in November 2024.
Nearly two years later, the prosecution that followed their deaths has reached its final stage. Miguel Diego Sandoval, 21, pleaded guilty Aug. 13 to four counts of first-degree murder and a group of other felonies tied to the shootings and the fire that followed. Prosecutors say Sandoval carried out the attack as revenge after the end of a romantic relationship with Aca-ac and Maquindang’s brother. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 17 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The guilty pleas mean a trial will not be needed to determine whether Sandoval committed the crimes he admitted.
Family members who spoke publicly after the killings emphasized the lives inside the North Tabler Avenue home before it became a crime scene. Garcia’s relatives remembered him as an affectionate and accepting person who paid attention to how others felt. They described his relationship with Aca-ac as a strong match and said the family quickly recognized how well the couple fit together. Aca-ac, meanwhile, was more than a sister and partner within the household. Relatives said she was the legal guardian of younger siblings, giving her an important caregiving role in a family whose structure was suddenly shattered by her death.
Montebello’s relatives offered their own picture of a young man whose interests stretched beyond the brief police descriptions that first identified the dead. His mother called him kind, respectful, caring, intelligent and talented. She said he and friends spent time making music and being creative. She had dinner with him the night before the killings, not knowing it would be their final meeting. His brother told a television reporter that the family had spent the following days grieving. Maquindang, Montebello’s partner and Aca-ac’s brother, was remembered in family fundraising material as a good listener with kindness, intelligence and a sense of humor.
Those personal accounts emerged while detectives were still trying to explain why the four had been targeted. In the first days after the Nov. 16, 2024, attack, investigators said little about motive. Sheriff’s deputies and firefighters had responded to the 44500 block of North Tabler Avenue shortly before 1:30 a.m. and found the home burning. Three victims died at the scene, while another was taken to a hospital and later died. A 16-year-old who was also inside survived after calling 911 from a locked bedroom and being rescued by deputies. Authorities described the episode as isolated but did not publicly identify a reason for it.
The prosecution’s later account filled in the central gap. The District Attorney’s Office now says Sandoval waited outside the residence until the people inside had gone to bed, entered the home and shot Maquindang, Aca-ac, Garcia and Montebello. Prosecutors said he then set the residence on fire and fled. Three dogs died in the fire. The office said the crimes were committed as revenge following the end of Sandoval’s relationship with the victims’ brother. That motive was not established in the public announcements made immediately after the killings, which is why early news reports quoted relatives saying they had questions about what had led to the attack.
The legal case expanded beyond the four homicides. Sandoval pleaded guilty to first-degree murder with special circumstances for multiple murders and murder by lying in wait. He also pleaded guilty to attempted murder, first-degree residential burglary and arson of an inhabited structure or property. Three animal-cruelty felonies corresponded to the dogs that died, and two felony child-abuse counts involved circumstances likely to cause great bodily injury or death. Prosecutors have not provided a detailed public narrative identifying every act behind the nonmurder counts, but Sandoval’s pleas constitute admissions to those offenses.
When prosecutors first filed the case on Nov. 26, 2024, Sandoval was a 19-year-old defendant accused of murder, burglary and arson. The charging announcement alleged that the four victims had been shot while sleeping and that the killings involved lying in wait and multiple murders. At that stage, the government still had the burden of proving the charges, and Sandoval was held without bail. The August 2026 guilty pleas changed that legal position. The case no longer turns on allegations that would have to be established at trial; the remaining proceeding is sentencing on crimes Sandoval has formally admitted.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said after the pleas that the attack followed a breakup and described it as calculated violence that left an enduring absence for the victims’ families. His office said the resolution guarantees that Sandoval will spend his life in prison. Court reporting described the expected punishment as four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. The formal sentence is set to be imposed Nov. 17 at the Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles.
The attack’s consequences extended beyond the courtroom. The two couples had lived together in a small residential area where neighbors told reporters they generally kept to themselves and were polite when they saw others outside, including while walking their dogs. Their deaths forced several families to plan funerals at once. Separate fundraising efforts were created for funeral expenses and other costs. For younger relatives who had relied on Aca-ac’s guardianship, the violence also removed a caregiver. For the teenage survivor, the same house that had been a home became the place from which the survivor called for help while it burned.
Public records have not been perfectly consistent about the victims’ ages. The most recent District Attorney’s Office announcement listed Maquindang as 21, Aca-ac as 25, Garcia as 24 and Montebello as 21. Earlier official releases and contemporaneous reports gave different ages for several of them. Their names and relationships have remained consistent across the reporting. The discrepancy is a reminder that early information released during major criminal investigations can change as authorities review records and prepare a case for court.
What has become more definite over time is the legal account of responsibility. Sandoval has admitted entering the home, the four murders and the connected crimes charged by prosecutors. The District Attorney’s Office says the case was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott of the Major Crimes Division. Because of the pleas, the scheduled November hearing is expected to focus on formally imposing the punishment rather than deciding whether Sandoval committed the offenses.
The sentencing will close a major phase of a case that began with an emergency response to a burning house, but the record left by relatives is not limited to the crime. Their public memories describe Garcia as caring, Aca-ac as a guardian, Maquindang as thoughtful and Montebello as creative. Those descriptions preserve a view of the four as members of intertwined families and relationships, rather than only as the victims listed in a criminal case that now carries four murder convictions.
Author note: Last updated September 28, 2026.