Mother arrested after her 3 children found slain in LA
Victims under age 5; mom is apprehended 200 miles away
LOS ANGELES — The mother of three children — all under age 5 — found slain inside a Los Angeles apartment Saturday morning has been arrested, police said.
Liliana Carrillo, 30, was arrested in Tulare County, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. It wasn’t immediately known whether she had an attorney.
The children’s grandmother returned home from work and found their bodies,
Los Angeles police
Lt. Raul Jovel said. The mother was missing, the grandmother told police.
The Los Angeles Police Department tweeted that the children appeared to be under 5 years old. A police spokesman initially said they were under age 3.
The gruesome discovery was made around 9:30 a.m. in the 8000 block of Reseda Boulevard, Jovel said.
Police said initial reports suggested the children had been stabbed to death, but no official cause of death has been released.
Jovel said investigators were still working to determine a motive.
The department received reports Carrillo was driving her car and heading north on Interstate 5 when she got in an altercation in the Bakersfield area. She abandoned her car and carjacked another vehicle, Jovel said.
Carrillo was detained in the Ponderosa area of Tulare County, about 100 miles north of Bakersfield, police said.
“At this point, she is a suspect in this incident but that doesn’t exclude other people,” Jovel said.
Lupe Cuevas, a neighbor of Carrillo and her children, told the San Bernardino Sun that she interacted with the three children and their grandmother during afternoon walks around the neighborhood.
One of the children, a girl, was drawn to her Chihuahua, Rosie, Cuevas told the newspaper.
“Those babies were such sweet little ones,” she said. “It hurts.”
Cuevas said she thought the girl was the middle child of the three.
“She wasn’t shy. She was sweet.” Cuevas said. “An angel shouldn’t have to go that way.”