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Northern California law enforcement officals pulled over the driver of a Chevrolet Suburban on Easter Sunday morning for a suspected registration violation, and came upon a grisly scene that ultimately led them to two homicide victims.

The California highway patrol said in a statement that two people, the person driving the vehicle and a passenger, had been arrested in connection with the killings. The passenger attempted to flee when officers stopped the SUV in Clearlake, about 100 miles north-east of San Francisco, but was quickly detained, according to CHP.

The officers conducting the stop saw large amounts of blood in the vehicle, John Pinoli, the CHP northern division chief, said in a press conference on Wednesday. They found an unresponsive man in the rear passenger area, who was later pronounced dead.

Officers also discovered a gun near where the passenger attempted to flee, and investigators soon came across another victim, a woman who was found dead down an embankment miles away.

“What started as a routine traffic stop rapidly turned into a complex investigation,” Pinoli said.

Authorities have identified the suspects as Alex Kenneth Schussolin, 37, and Jasslynn Pearl Critchett, 32, both of Clearlake, and said they believe the incident started in Sonoma county before moving to Lake county where officers stopped the pair. They face charges of murder and carjacking, among others.

The Lake county sheriff’s office and district attorney identified the victims to media as Desiree Fuentes and Terry Harris, who are from Sonoma county.

In a GoFundMe, Fuentes’s daughter said she was supposed to come dye eggs with her family over the weekend, but never arrived and her children were unable to reach her. Fuentes was the “sweetest social butterfly you would ever meet” and “loved by everyone”, her daughter wrote.

Authorities have not yet released additional information about the events leading up to the killings. Susan Krones, the district attorney, told Lake County News investigators believe the victims and suspects met for the first time on Sunday, and they had not established any earlier connections between the four.

Fuentes and Harris had been in “legal possession” of the vehicle Critchett and Schussolin were driving when CHP officers stopped them, Krones said. They face a steep sentence if convicted.

“They’re both looking at life without parole,” she told the outlet.