The Riverside County District Attorney's office will seek the death penalty against four Marines charged with the double homicide of Jan Pawel Pietrzak and his wife, Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak.

Investigators believe four US Marines – Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 20; Lance Cpl. Emrys Justin John, 18; Pvt. Kevin Darnell Cox, 20; and Lance Cpl. T Kesaun K. Sykes, 21 – forced their way into the Pietrzaks' French Valley home by gunpoint, sexually assaulted Jenkins-Pietrzak and then shot both in the head on Oct. 15.

"The absolute innocence of a beautiful, loving couple compared to the savagery of the actions of these four equally responsible defendants leads to one conclusion -- that this is a death penalty case," Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said in a statement released hours after a meeting between the DA's office and the victims' family members.

The decision comes slightly more than three months after a Riverside County sheriff's deputy found the bodies during a check on the house.

The four defendants have been arraigned and have pleaded not guilty. They are all due back in court on Feb. 2 for a conference hearing and then a preliminary hearing shortly after, during which the prosecutor must present enough evidence to a judge to show the charges are warranted.

The case has attracted nationwide attention and caused an uproar with those who followed the media accounts. Blogs and newspaper sites are still littered with posts wondering what has happened to the case.

"With four defendants in a case like this with four separate defense attorneys it's going to take awhile," said John Hall, spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney's office.

The four men were arrested on Nov. 4 on charges of first degree murder with a number of special circumstances, including murder Advertisement

[ Berry-Bell and Hall Mortuary ] during a robbery and a charge of sexual penetration with a foreign object. All four men pleaded not guilty during a Nov. 20 arraignment.

Hall said generally any case that has four defendants can take a long time to get before a jury. In some cases, the trial might be split into four separate juries.

"At this point we don't know," he said.

The case

The case against the four men is laid out in a document used to support search warrants.

In the documents, authorities state that the men went to the Pietrzak home on Bermuda St. The Pietrzaks had purchased the home out of foreclosure in May and were married in August.

Jenkins-Pietrzak worked as a Riverside County Health Education Assistant. Pietrzak moved from Poland when he was 8 and lived in Brooklyn, according to a family member.

He joined the Marines after 9/11 and was a helicopter airframe mechanic with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 164, Third Marine Aircraft Wing. Miller and John worked with Pietrzak; Cox and Sykes worked out of Camp Pendleton.

Three defendants said in court records that they went to the Pietrzak home to rob him. While at the home, Miller and John began discussing the idea of killing the couple. All three men pointed to John as the triggerman, according to the court records.

John said during his interview that he and Miller had guns when they went to the Pietrzak home but cut the conversation short with authorities, according to the court records.

According to court records, authorities found shoes that match impressions left at the house and some of the victims' items in the barracks where Cox and John were housed and at Sykes' home.

The men tried to cover the murder by starting a fire, authorities said.