A stranger broke into a farmhouse, terrorized five children who were home alone and stabbed two of them to death with a pitchfork before he was shot and killed by sheriff's deputies.

Three girls escaped through windows during the attack Wednesday morning and ran across farm fields to a neighbor's home, where they called 911. "It's such a shock," the children's father, John Carpenter, said yesterday. "You keep pinching yourself. I got to wake up."

Authorities said they knew of no connection between the family and the attacker, Jonathen David Bruce, 27, of Merced. He was identified through fingerprint records from a 1999 arrest for being under the influence of methamphetamine and fighting with police. A woman who used to live near Bruce said he hated children.

The attack occurred while the children's parents were out of the house, about 60 miles north of Fresno. Carpenter, 34, was at work. His wife, Tephanie Carpenter, 34, had taken her car in to have the brakes checked.

About 8 a.m., Jessica, 14 found a naked man in the living room, pulling his pants on. He had pushed furniture against the walls to barricade himself and the children in. Jessica, speaking at a news conference at a Merced hospital with her parents and sister Anna, said she ran to her room and locked herself in. He banged on her door, she said. She picked up the phone to call for help, but the line was dead. That's when she heard a cry, she said.

She escaped through a window to a neighbors house. No one was home, and when she returned to her house, Anna, 13, and Vanessa, 11, were fleeing, too, saying the man was attacking the remaining two children with a pitchfork.