Authorities investigate California deaths as foul play.
Authorities recovered a pair of handguns near the bodies of five family members found inside a quiet, gated California home overlooking the Pacific Ocean Sunday afternoon who may have been dead for several weeks. At least one person had been shot, but police have yet to determine a cause of death for any of the five.
"They're so badly decomposed that we have two coroners working on the autopsies," Lt. Erin Giudice, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriff's Office, told ABC News.
Giudice said police are not actively looking for a murder suspect, suggesting the possibility that the deaths may be the result of a murder-suicide. Giudice, however, did not want to speculate on the details surrounding the deaths.
Among the dead were two young women in their 20s, a middle-aged woman in her 40s, a middle-aged man in his 40s or 50s, and an elderly woman in her 70s or 80s, according to Giudice. The sole male had sustained a gunshot wound, she said. Because of the state of the bodies, it was unclear if the women had also been shot
The five bodies were located in a downstairs bedroom. The middle-aged pair was located in a closet-type area connected to a bedroom by a bathroom, Giudice said. The two young women and elderly woman were in other parts of the bedroom. One of the guns recovered by the bodies, she said, was registered to the middle-aged woman.
Authorities do not expect to identify the five people until Tuesday. Autopsies began this morning, Giudice confirmed to ABC News, adding that the state of decomposition was slowing the identification process.
Authorities responded to a 911 call Sunday afternoon after three family members -- concerned after not hearing from their relatives in weeks -- made the grisly find.
Concerned that they had not seen the residents of the house in several days, neighbors requested that authorities do a preliminary check around the home's exterior, which the sheriff's office did May 14 and again Saturday. Officers found nothing to suggest anything was wrong inside the house.
"One of the neighbors nearby, who is a friend with that family, said they had not seen them in a while and were concerned," Acting Orange County Sheriff Jack Anderson told KABC Sunday. "But they thought maybe they had gone off on a trip."
The bodies were believed to have been in the house for two to three weeks before Sunday afternoon's discovery.
Sea Pointe Estates is a gated community of more than 70 homes perched on a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean in San Clemente, Calif., a town at the southern edge of Orange County.
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