Focus in Double-Homicide Shifts to Possible Intruder : Crime: Investigators say the front door was forced open at a Garden Grove house where a man and woman were fatally shot.

GARDEN GROVE —  Sheriff’s investigators said Wednesday that a man and woman found dead in their home the day before appeared to have been shot by an intruder.

“This is going to be a tough one,” said Lt. Dick Olson, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “We have very little to work with.”

According to Olson, investigators found evidence that the front door had been forced open at 12142 Lorna St., where Robert John Klecker, 40, and Karen Kaye Stevens, 30, were found dead Tuesday afternoon.

The bodies were discovered by Klecker’s 15-year-old stepson, Daryl Paplia, when he returned home from school shortly after 4 p.m. with his mother, Klecker’s estranged wife.

Olson said the results of autopsies indicated that Klecker and Stevens had both died of gunshot wounds to the head sometime Tuesday morning. In addition to the evidence of forced entry, Olson said, a large gun safe in the house was found open, although he said there appeared to have been no struggle. Olson said no motive for the crime had been determined and investigators could not tell whether anything was missing.

Klecker, a welder described by acquaintances as deeply religious, was a gun enthusiast with a large collection of firearms. He had lived in the house for more than five years, neighbors said, and Stevens had moved in recently.

“There are just a lot of things (about this case) that make it difficult,” Olson said. “If neighbors had heard shots or saw a car speeding away, at least we’d have that. We’ll be doing a lot of scientific and forensic work inside the house to recover any information we can.”

Klecker’s children--Paplia, who plays football at Garden Grove High School, and a fifth-grade daughter, Dawn--were reported to be staying with their grandparents on Wednesday.

“The little girl is in a state of shock,” said a relative who declined to give her name. “We don’t know of any reason this would happen.”

Neighbors seemed equally perplexed by Tuesday’s grisly events.

“There were never any problems,” said Bob Dougherty, who lives four houses down the street. “He seemed like a very nice person.”

Salvador Corral, another neighbor, said: “People here are kind of shocked. This is a quiet neighborhood.”