BOSTON -- Boston Police are investigating a shooting rampage that left four young men dead in the basement of a Dorchester house Tuesday night and hiked the city's homicide rate to a 10-year high.

NewsCenter 5's David Boeri reported that police were called to the house at 43 Bourneside Street about 9:30 p.m. and found the men shot in the triple-decker's basement, which was used as a music recording studio.

"Upon arrival we found that four individuals had been shot in the basement of that location. Three of those individuals have succumbed to their wounds and they are deceased," Boston Police Superintendent Bobbie Johnson said. A fourth man, 21 years old, later died of his wounds at Boston Medical Center.

All were killed in a well-maintained neighborhood, on a street not known for trouble.

"The neighbors said they had seen the kids go in and out but they had not had the need to call the police to intervene because the kids were not loud, even though it was supposed to be a ... place where they were trying to make music," Johnson said.

Area residents expressed shock. Rev. Eugene Rivers, an outreach activist who works with gangs, lives next door to the shooting scene. He came home to find ambulances and stretchers on his street.

" I don't know what to say. I just pulled up here. Came home. Saw my house with [police] tape and I thought something was happening at my house and as it turns out, it's the folks who live behind us," Rivers said.

Witnesses heard both gunshots and a woman screaming, but police did not say whether the four were shot by an intruder or as a result of an argument between them. They said someone saw an individual leaving the house.

"We just have some basic information of a heavy-set person fleeing the scene shortly after the shooting. We're trying to confirm that," Johnson said.

The city's homicide rate is the highest since 1995, when four people were gunned down in a crowded Charlestown restaurant. In 1991, five men were shot in a social club in Chinatown. There have been 71 homicides in Boston in 2005.