Child recalls how mother killed family

Mother told daughter she was going to see Jesus, DFCS report says.

In grisly and heartbreaking detail, 9-year-old Diana Romero described watching her mother stab her brothers, sister and father before turning the knife on her.

Isabel Martinez, 33, told her daughter that she was going to the sky to see Jesus, according to a state child welfare report obtained Wednesday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The young girl cried and told her mother that she didn’t want to go to see Jesus, according to the report by the state Division of Family and Children Services.

The DFCS documents include a caseworker’s notes on her interview with Diana, who describes in horrid detail watching her mother slay her siblings and father one by one in their Loganville home.

The child, for instance, says that her father tried to stop the mother but couldn’t.

Martinez is accused of stabbing and killing her husband, 33-year-old Martin Romero, and four of her children, 2-yearold Axel, 4-year-old Dillan and 7-year-old Dacota Romero and 10-year-old Isabela Martinez, early on July 6.

She was charged with five counts of malice murder, five counts of murder and six charges of aggravated assault.

The DFCS report also includes a interview with the mother in the Gwinnett jail, who said she is innocent and that the killings were performed by a “family friend,” but she provided no name. Martinez told the DFCS caseworker that she tried to stop the friend and he cut her on the wrist.

Martinez also described a recent family trip to Savannah where, according to the report, she felt “a devil-like spirit” and where she

felt the waves trying to take her and her children away.

The child welfare agency had one prior interaction with the family in September of 2015, when the agency received an accusation saying the father struck one of the daughters with a shoe and a phone charger at night when she wouldn’t sleep. It’s unclear in the report which daughter was being struck. The agency investigated and both parents admitted disciplining the children using a belt on their behinds.

But the agency found there were no safety threats and the case was closed soon after. “In Georgia, corporal punishment crosses the line when there are welts or marks or bruises,” said Ashley Fielding Cooper, DFCS chief operating officer. “Based on the information we gathered in this case, we determined that corporal punishment was used within the bounds of the law and that maltreatment did not occur.”

On the deadly night of July 6, Diana Romero, a fourthgrader at Magill Elementary School, was stabbed by her mother, police say. She is the only survivor of the attacks. Family members have said she is steadily improving but has a long road to recovery both physically and mentally.

The caseworker spoke with Diana at 12:15 p.m. July 10. Before she opened up to the caseworker about the attacks, the child talked about having fun on the beach in Savannah. She said her mother and father did not fight while the family was away. She said her mother seemed normal when they all came home.

Diana said the police had never come to her home before.

As she began to speak about that night, Diana cried, the report said. She said everyone seemed to be asleep when the trouble started.

She said she saw her mother take the knife out of the kitchen and start cutting her brothers and sister.

Her father rushed into the living room and tried to get help, but when he was walking to the door, she cut him too, according to the report.

Diana told the caseworker that, watching all this before her, she could not move. She said her mother was not crying or screaming during the stabbings, the report said.

She said her mother called the police after she cut herself. Five of the family members were dead when police arrived at the home in the pre-dawn hours.

In a subsequent court appearance, Martinez exhibited bizarre behavior, smiling and giving cameras the thumbs-up sign.

On Tuesday, the attorney for the woman said she will not undergo a psychological evaluation at this stage in her case, but could later on.

HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM Fives caskets of the victims — Martin Romero, 33, and four of his children — are surrounded by mourners before the funeral Mass at St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Lawrenceville earlier this month.

A public GoFundMe site contained this undated picture of the Romero family. The site was set up by a family member and shows Martin Romero and his children.