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There were signs of trouble a day before the slayings, said neighbor Alex Oropesa. "They did have a family issue the day before," Oropesa said. "I just know that they had a lot of people over the day before dealing with issues." Oropesa said she could not say exactly what the problems were because the family was speaking Ukrainian, which she can't understand. She said there appeared to be only "a little bit of arguing." On the day of the slayings, Oropesa said she heard some tires screech, but otherwise nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The killing also had parallels to another tragic slaying in Sacramento County's Ukrainian community. Nikolay Soltys was charged with killing his pregnant wife, his 3-year-old son and four other relatives in Rancho Cordova in 2001. He was captured after a nationwide manhunt and later hanged himself in jail while awaiting trial. Andre Bondaruk said Bukhantsov's parents used to live next to him in Carmichael, another Sacramento suburb. He said Grigoriy Bukhantsov had a history of causing trouble at the family's former home, such as assaulting a sister and picking fights with neighbors. "Trouble is a light word for it," Bondaruk said. "He made serious threats. He compared himself to Soltys." There are more than 100,000 members of the Russian-speaking community in the Sacramento area, said David Ponomar, who owns the Sacramento-based Afisha Media Group, which includes a Russian-language newspaper, magazine, radio programs and TV programs. Maria Murguia, who lives next door to the home where the slayings occurred, said she didn't know the family well, but would often say hello to them, especially when she saw the children playing in the backyard. She said she never heard any yelling or fighting coming from the home. "They were a normal family. I heard the babies playing in the backyard and saw their mother giving them food sometimes. I never see anything," she said. "I don't know what happened, and I'm so sad because those are little kids."
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