Editorials

The Union City Police Department sought to reassure citizens Saturday that a brutal triple homicide this week was not a random outbreak of violence. 

The police said that the murder victims, Johnny Li, 33, and Deborah Yao, 26, who were engaged to be married, and a man believed to be a friend of Li's whose identity has not been released, were specifically targeted by their attackers. 

The three were found dead Thursday night inside a two-story house at 33056 Compton Court, which Li and Yao had been renting since August of last year. The police said the three victims had been beaten so badly that the cause of death was unclear, and they had been dead for at least a day before they were discovered. 

Investigators believe that at least two attackers, most likely known by the victims, were let into the house prior to the killings.