A flurry of gunfire ringing out in the middle of the night led Turlock Police detectives to a grisly scene of two men shot to death in a vehicle near Highway 99.

The deceased were identified as Ismael Arteaga, 23 and Alexis Jimenez, 20, both of Livingston.

At 2:13 a.m. Thursday the police department received reports of gunshots in the area of Countryside Drive and Fulkerth Road. Around the same time multiple calls came in reporting a vehicle stopped near the intersection of Fulkerth Road and Highway 99.

“The vehicle had obvious signs of having been shot at multiple times,” said Turlock Police spokesman Sgt. Russ Holeman.

Two men in the vehicle - the driver and a passenger - had both been shot and were already deceased.

The double homicide comes a week after 18-year-old Johnny Wilson was shot to death in a drive-by shooting. It’s unknown if the murders are connected and the investigation into Wilson’s death is ongoing.

The double murder marks the sixth and seventh homicides in Turlock this year. In addition to Wilson’s death, in August, Alfonso Serrato, 31, of Sacramento, was stabbed to death during fight in the 100 block of Farr Street. On June 19, Daniel Russell, 50, of Turlock, was shot to death in his Almond Avenue home. Seventeen-year-old Richard Lee Short III was shot to death at a home in the 300 block of Mitchell Avenue on June 11. In May, 16-year-old Ismael Guzman died after he was shot in the 500 block of Vermont Avenue. In April, Jack Keener died after being run over by a vehicle and then left in a field in the area of S. First and D streets.

The double homicide is an ongoing investigation with detectives currently processing the evidence located at the scene and attempting to determine a motive for this crime, Holeman said.