California Man Drives Body to Police and Admits to Killing 3 Others, Authorities Say

A man drove up to a police station in a small town in Northern California on Monday and told officers that he had killed four of his relatives — including one person whose body was in the car just outside, the authorities said.

The man, Shankar Hangud, 53, had driven to the Mount Shasta Police Department from his apartment in Roseville, Calif., more than 200 miles away, and he “made a confession,” Capt. Josh Simon of the Roseville Police Department said in a news conference on Tuesday.

The police in Roseville found the other three bodies, an adult and two “juveniles,” at the apartment, Captain Simon said.

Mr. Hangud was charged with four counts of murder, the chief said. He did not provide the victims’ names, ages or relationship to Mr. Hangud, but he said they were related and that the authorities were working to locate the next of kin.

Mr. Hangud was being held at South Placer Jail, in Roseville, the authorities said.

The police captain said that detectives were still trying to put together a timeline of the murders, which he said took place over a few days.

He said Mr. Hangud and the male victim in his car, who was of East Asian descent, had left the apartment and gone to “unknown places in North California” before ending up in Mount Shasta, a town of more than 3,200 about 220 miles north of Sacramento.

“We are not sure at what point he left his residence to go north,” Captain Simon said. He said that detectives were still investigating to determine whether there were other crime scenes along the route that Mr. Hangud took.

“That is a piece of the puzzle that we are still looking in to,” he said.

Sgt. Robert Gibson, who was in the Mount Shasta station when the man turned himself in, said the man was very calm and “matter of fact.”

“He just came in and told our dispatcher that I want to confess to a murder, and then just gave it up,” Sergeant Gibson said. “I have never had someone come in with a body and turn themselves in here. This was unusual for us.”

He said that the man “said nothing as to why or what brought this on.”

Sergeant Gibson said the police did not initially believe the man when he said he had killed his family. Then the man handed officers the keys to the red Mazda sedan that he said he had driven to the station with the body, Sergeant Gibson said.

It was not clear where the victim in the car had been killed, and Captain Simon did not release information about how the victims were killed or whether weapons or firearms had been recovered.