Los Angeles ? A man fatally shot his wife, five young children and himself, claiming in a note he faxed to a TV station Tuesday that the couple had just been fired from their hospital jobs and together planned the killings as an escape for the whole family.

“Why leave our children in someone else’s hands,” Ervin Lupoe wrote in his letter to KABC-TV. The station posted the letter on its Web site later with some parts redacted.

The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch center also received a call from a man who stated, “I just returned home and my whole family’s been shot.”

Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 8:30 a.m. and found the bodies.

All were shot in the head, some multiple times, Coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter said. The killings may have occurred between Monday evening and early Tuesday, based on neighbors’ accounts of firecracker sounds, he said.

Although the fax asserted that Ana Lupoe planned the killings of the whole family, police Lt. John Romero said Ervin Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.

Ana Lupoe’s body was found in an upstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple’s twin 2-year-old boys. The bodies of an 8-year-old girl and twin 5-year-old girls were found alongside Ervin Lupoe’s in another bedroom.

It was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year. Police urged those facing tough economic times to get help rather than resort to violence.

“Today our worst fear was realized,” said Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner. “It’s just not a solution. There’s just so many ways you find alternatives to doing something so horrific and drastic as this.”

Ervin Lupoe removed three of the children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas, the principal told KCAL-TV. Crescent Heights Elementary School Principal Cherise Pounders-Caver said nothing seemed to be troubling Lupoe at that time; she did not ask why the family was moving.

Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles released a statement confirming both Lupoe and his wife had worked there; both were medical technicians.

“We are deeply saddened to hear of the deaths of the Lupoe family,” it said in a statement.

In his letter, Ervin Lupoe claimed he and his wife both had been fired and that she suggested they kill themselves and their children, too. Police described the fax but did not release details.

The Kaiser Permanente statement made no comment on the claims in Lupoe’s fax.

“It looks like they might have had grounds for his termination … it wasn’t that he was laid off as a result of the economic situation,” police Capt. Billy Hayes said.

Lupoe’s fax identified his children as Brittney, 8; 5-year-old twins Jaszmin and Jassely; and twins Benjamin and Christian, ages 2 years and 4 months. Winter confirmed the identities of the girls, but the boys’ names were pending.