A Fort Wayne, Indiana, mother who killed her two children had 65 years added to her 130-year sentence for fatally shooting her former neighbor.
Amber Pasztor, 30, pleaded guilty but mentally ill Monday to the September 2016 slaying of Frank Macomber, 66. The South Bend Tribune reported that Pasztor shot Macomber dead before stealing his car and abducting her two children from their grandparents’ home. Macomber and Pasztor were previously neighbors in a mobile home park.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, an Amber Alert was issued as Pasztor took Liliana Hernandez, 7, and Rene Pasztor, 6, to a restaurant then drove them to a park where she smothered them in Macomber’s car. She then flagged down an officer behind the Elkhart Police Station and informed him that her two kids were dead in the back seat.
READ More: Mother smothers her two children to death: ‘I gave them a choice’
Macomber’s body was found in a wooded area near Pasztor’s home. The Journal Gazette reported that Pasztor told investigators that she killed her former neighbor because he was working with the cartels and she wanted them to know “not to mess with her.”
Previous reports indicated that Pasztor also claimed that she believed a Mexican cartel was targeting her and her children as they “hacked the children’s father to pieces.” The children’s father, Rene Hernandez, was found dead in a remote area of Whitley County in 2010. Authorities told People that investigators couldn’t determine a cause of death because feral dogs had ripped his body apart.
Her family told the magazine that Pasztor had lost custody of her children two years before the murders due to substance abuse issues. The children were afraid of Pasztor and would describe her as “evil,” they said.
Pasztor claimed the Amber Alert pushed her to kill her two kids. She smothered her daughter then her son, saying that he “wanted to go with her.”
“I gave them a choice,” Amber told local news station WANE in 2016. “They could live traumatized like their mom or they can go to heaven with God and be better off.”
[Featured Image: Rene Pasztor (left), Liliana Hernandez (right)/Allen County Sheriff; Amber Pasztor (center)/Elkhart Police Department]
