LANCASTER, Calif. (AP) - A NASA engineer was identified Tuesday
as one of four people found dead after a suspicious fire in an
Antelope Valley house.

Joseph Paul Ciganek, 60, lived in the Quartz Hill home that
burned Monday, said Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Ed
Winter.

Ciganek worked at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center as a
management systems analyst specializing in electronic test systems,
said NASA spokesman Alan Brown. Dryden is located on Edwards Air
Force Base.

Sheriff's homicide detectives are investigating the deaths.

Firefighters found Ciganek's body in a different room from those
of a woman, a boy who was about 10 years old and a girl who was
about 13, Winter said.

Ciganek's body showed some kind of trauma, while the other
bodies were badly burned, he said. The woman and the two children were related to each other but had a different last name from Ciganek.

Investigators withheld their names pending notification of the
woman's next of kin who was out of the country, said Winters.

Quartz Hill is an unincorporated area near Lancaster in the
Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)