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Public Safety

Torrey Highlands Couple, Son Who Were Killed In Apparent Double Murder-Suicide ID'd

The home, in this March 2019 photo, in Torrey Highlands where a couple were reported killed by their son.
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The home, in this March 2019 photo, in Torrey Highlands where a couple were reported killed by their son.

Authorities Wednesday released the names of three family members who died in an apparent double murder-suicide in northern San Diego.

Investigators believe that Fang Cheng, 30, killed his mother, Xiaoqun Fang, and father, Yi Cheng, in the couple's Torrey Highlands home and then took his own life by leaping off a freeway overpass in Sorrento Valley.

Officers responding to a report of an apparent suicide on Interstate 805 found the son's body on the roadway east of UC San Diego shortly before 2 a.m. Friday, according to police. Investigators determined that Cheng had jumped off the Eastgate Mall bridge, Lt. Martha Sainz said.

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About 10 p.m. Saturday, patrol personnel conducting a welfare check at the home of Cheng's 58-year-old parents in the 7400 block of Via Rivera, just south of state Route 56, discovered the couple dead inside their residence.

The husband and wife — who had been expected in San Francisco earlier in the day but failed to arrive, prompting a concerned relative to call the police — had sustained traumatic injuries to their upper bodies, Sainz said. Their suspected cause or causes of their deaths have not been released.

"Detectives will continue investigating this case to determine a motive for the homicides," Sainz said.

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