Police ID Murder-Suicide Suspect

The man who is suspected of two days before committing suicide by jumping off a freeway overpass in Spring Valley has been identified by police.

Alfredo Almonte, 37, was in a brushy ravine about 150 feet below an elevated section of state Route 125 in Spring Valley shortly before 5:30 a.m. on June 1, Lt. Lon Turner said. 

Almonte is believed to have killed Mary Alvarez, 41, and her children Angelica, 12, and Hamid, 11 in their Chula Vista home on May 30. Almonte's body was found in a ravine below the roadway in the early morning hours of June 1, after a California Highway Patrol officer noticed an abandoned 2001 Hyundai Elantra partially blocking a traffic lane.

Investigators traced the car back to Alvarez's home on Currant Way, where she and her children were found dead, victims of apparent asphyxiation, according to the county Medical Examiner's Office. Alvarez and her daughter also had blunt force head trauma injuries.

Almonte, a divorced Dominican Republic citizen, was a self-employed handyman who supported himself with odd jobs and construction projects. Alvarez was a special education instructor at San Ysidro High School.

Police detectives concluded that the ex-boyfriend had murdered the family out of rage over the breakup of the couple's romantic relationship, Chula Vista Police Department spokesman Bernard Gonzales said.

Toxicology reports indicated that Almonte had traces of cocaine and morphine
in his system.

The medical examiner's office said that the victims seemed to have been strangled with a cord or rope, though investigators have not found or identified the weapons Almonte used to strangle and bludgeon the victims, and details on the motivation for the slayings also remain elusive, Turner said.

"He didn't leave any notes behind to explain what happened or ... why he was doing what he was doing,'' the lieutenant said.

City News Service contributed to this report.