3 separate crime scenes, with 3 dead, traced to one L.A. wife and mother, source says

Police spent Monday following a bizarre and tragic trail of violence that left the dead and injured bodies of a Woodland Hills family scattered across Los Angeles County.

The horror began with a woman killing her husband at their Valley home, abandoning her two small daughters on the 405 Freeway — one of whom died — and then fatally crashing her car into a tree in Redondo Beach, according to a law enforcement source who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

The first sign of the family tragedy turned up around 4:30 a.m. Monday.

That’s when officers were called to the northbound 405 Freeway near the Sepulveda Boulevard/Howard Hughes Parkway exit, according to the California Highway Patrol. An infant girl about 5 or 6 months old was found in the roadway, and a 9-year-old girl was found on the right shoulder.

The infant was pronounced dead at the scene, and the girl was taken to a hospital with moderate injuries, the law enforcement source said. A 911 caller reported seeing a black sedan near where the girls were found, according to media reports.

Next, around 5 a.m., police in Redondo Beach responded to reports of a car crashed into a tree on Pacific Coast Highway near the intersection of Vincent Street. The female driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

At first, it wasn’t completely clear that the two incidents were related.

But about two hours later, police arrived at the dead woman’s home, in the 6200 block of Variel Avenue in Woodland Hills, where the full scope of the tragedy came into focus.

At the house, police found the woman’s husband stabbed to death. Neighbors at the Montecito Apartments said the couple had a volatile relationship and that they’d had a fight before the woman left with the kids, as reported by KCAL News.

Authorities have not yet released the identities of the family members.