Police say the mother of three toddlers found dead in a Reseda, California, apartment Saturday morning is the “sole suspect” in the children’s deaths.
CBS Los Angeles said the children’s grandmother came home from work at about 9:30 a.m. and found the children dead and their mother, identified as 30-year-old Liliana Carrilo, gone.
The children — a 6-month old, a 2-year-old, and a 3-year-old — were pronounced dead at the scene, and police launched a massive manhunt for their mother. The names of the children have not been released.
We can confirm Liliana Carrillo is the mother of the three children who were killed, and she is considered the sole suspect in this case.
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) April 10, 2021
Investigators said she headed north in her own vehicle but abandoned it after some kind of altercation in the Bakersfield area, the Associated Press reported. At that point, police said, she allegedly carjacked a vehicle and continued north in a stolen silver Toyota pickup truck.
Shortly after 2 p.m., LA police said Carrilo was taken into custody in the Ponderosa community of central California, nearly 200 miles north of Reseda, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
“She did a horrific crime here,” said LAPD Lieutenant Ben Fernandes, CBS LA reported, “and then followed it up by another crime north of here. And it’s those behaviors that ultimately got her caught.”
Early reports from the scene of the crime said that the children were stabbed to death, but LA police backtracked and said a cause of death has not been determined. They’ve also not revealed a motive for the crime.
It’s not clear if Carrilo has been arrested. NBC News quoted an LAPD spokeswoman saying that she was not and another saying that she was receiving unspecified medical treatment.
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[Featured image: Three children were found dead inside this apartment building Saturday morning. Their mother, Liliana Carrilo, is the ‘sole suspect,’ police said. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)]
