A 30-year-old California woman has been charged with the murders of her three children, aged three or younger, after being arrested for carjacking a motorist in an escape attempt, NBC News reports.
Liliana Carrillo of Reseda neighborhood of Los Angeles had been in custody since April 10th, when she was detained after pulling a driver from a car in Bakersfield. The children’s grandmother found the bodies of the children–daughters Joanna, 3 years old, and Sierra, 6 months; and her son, Terry, 2 years old, when she went to the family’s apartment to check on the family.
Carrillo is charged with using a knife as a deadly weapon in relation to her youngest child, but she claimed in a jailhouse interview that she drowned her children to avoid further abuse. “I wasn’t about to hand my children off to be further abused,” she said, telling the outlet that she killed them “softly.”
“Our hearts go out to the family of these children who are coping with this tremendous loss,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “My office has reached out to the survivors to offer trauma-informed services during these incredibly difficult times.”