Los Angeles – A woman was charged today with killing her three young children earlier this month in Reseda.
“Our hearts go out to the family of these children who are coping with this tremendous loss,” District Attorney George Gascón said. “My office has reached out to the survivors to offer trauma-informed services during these incredibly difficult times.”
Liliana Carrillo, 30, was charged with three counts of murder with “an allegation of using a knife as a deadly and dangerous weapon as to her youngest child.”
On April 10, Carrillo is accused of killing her 3-year-old daughter Joanna, her 2-year-old son Terry and 6-month-old daughter Sierra. Initial reports said the children were stabbed to death but Carrillo claims she drowned the children to “save them” from their father.
“Eric [Denton, the children’s father,] and his friends had basically told me throughout my relationship about what would happen, and everything was happening just as they were saying it,” Carrillo told KTLA. “I wasn’t about to hand my children off to be further abused.”
She was asked if she had any regret killing her children; “Yes, I do I wish that I didn’t have to do that But I prefer them not being tortured and abused on a regular basis for the rest of their life.”
“I drowned them. I did it as softly, I don’t know how to explain it,” she said. “I hugged them. I kissed them. I was apologizing the whole time. I loved my kids.”
“I didn’t want them to be further abused. I loved my kids. I wish this didn’t have to be the case, but I promised to protect them.”
Carrillo told KTLA that she “has always been a social justice warrior, equal rights and human rights activist.”
Watch the interview with Carrillo below.
The AP reported: Three-year-old Joanna, her 2-year-old brother, Terry, and 6-month-old sister, Sierra, had been staying with their mother — Denton’s ex-girlfriend — in the Reseda section of Los Angeles. Fearful for their safety, their father had petitioned the court for custody March 1, alleging their mother, Liliana Carrillo, was delusional and had taken the kids and refused to tell him where they were.
Carrillo, in turn, filed a restraining order against him and claimed Denton was an alcoholic who may have sexually abused their eldest child.
Carrillo claimed that her ex-boyfriend’s home town was running a sex trafficking ring and she was solely responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, her estranged partner Eric Denton said.
Carrillo allegedly fled after the crime and was arrested in Tulare County.
The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Juvenile Division.
