SHOOTING INSIDE FAMILY'S HOME LEAVES 3 DEAD : POLICE SUSPECT MURDER-SUICIDE.

Byline: Mary Beth Alexander Daily News Staff Writer

A former sheriff's deputy shot and killed his estranged, 19-year-old girlfriend and her older sister and fatally shot himself in a dispute inside the victims' home Christmas Eve, police said.

The shooting happened in the living room of the home in the 20100 block of Devonshire Street, police said. One woman and the gunman died inside the home. The other woman died at a hospital, officials said.

``They were nice people, great people. They used to baby-sit my kids all the time,'' a sobbing Robin Sterk, a longtime family friend, said of the two young women. ``I can't believe it.''

Police identified the victims as Serafina Chimienti, 25, and Angela Chimienti, 19.

Police said the gunman was a 31-year-old former Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy, a resident of Newhall. He said the man was the estranged boyfriend of Angela Chimienti.

Police withheld the name of the gunman until his family could be notified.

Though unclear what led up to the shooting, authorities said it apparently happened during a dispute between the gunman and the two sisters.

A gun was found by the bodies inside the home, Guerrero said.

``By all indications, we have a double murder and suicide,'' Guerrero said. ``We have a very tragic incident, obviously, inside.''

A neighbor said both young victims lived in the home with a third sister, Angela's identical twin, and their parents.

Police were sent to the home about 3 p.m., after a dispatcher received a 911 call from someone inside, said Sgt. Willie Guerrero, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

When officers arrived, Guerrero said, an ambulance already was at the home and paramedics were tending to Serafina Chimienti, the only victim who was alive.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said Serafina Chimienti had been shot at least once in the upper left abdomen. She was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where she died a short time later.

``The woman was barely clinging to life when we transported her,'' Humphrey said.

Humphrey said Angela Chimienti had been shot in the upper body, and the man had been shot in the head.

Concerned neighbors and friends rushed to the modest, off-white stucco home fronting Devonshire Street, which was surrounded by police cars and cordoned off by yellow crime-scene tape.

They were not allowed past the tape and many, including Sterk, broke down crying when they learned what had happened.

``I've known them since they were little,'' Sterk said of the victims. ``Our kids all went to school together.''

Neighbors described the family as very close.

``Their parents are so hard-working. We've known them for years,'' said Jack Fisher, who lives four doors down from the family. ``The girls are great girls.''

Fisher said the 17-year-old brother of the victims had returned home within the past few days from a military preparatory school in San Juan Capistrano to spend the holiday with the family.

The father of the victims, Fisher said, is a tailor in Beverly Hills, and the mother is a seamstress for a department store. The couple renovated the home after the Northridge Earthquake, and were planning to sell it and relocate to San Diego, Fisher said.

The twins, he said, had just completed a nursing program.

All three of the girls were graduates of Chatsworth High School, Sterk said.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Family members leave the house in Chatsworth, the scene of an apparent double murder-suicide.

(2) Police cordon off the house in the 20100 block of Devonshire Street during their investigation of Friday's fatal shooting of two sisters who lived there.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News