Authorities have identified the three young children who were discovered dead inside a Reseda apartment in an incident that led to the arrest of their mother over the weekend.
The cause of death is still not yet known for 3-year-old Joanna Denton Carrillo, 2-year-old Terry Denton Carrillo and 6-month-old Sierra Denton Carrillo, according to L.A. County coroner records. As of Monday, their autopsies were still pending.
Los Angeles Police Department officers were first dispatched to the 8000 block of Reseda Boulevard around 9:30 a.m. Saturday after the children’s grandmother, returning from work, found all three victims deceased.
The children’s mother, 30-year-old Liliana Carrillo, was soon identified as the “sole suspect” in the slayings, spurring a manhunt that ended when she was apprehended later that afternoon in the Ponderosa area of Tulare County, according to LAPD. That’s about 200 miles north of the crime scene.
In between the time of the triple homicide and her capture, she allegedly carjacked a vehicle in the Bakersfield area.
Carrillo was involved in a crash on Highway 65 in which someone had stopped to help, according to Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux.
“As he exits his vehicle to assist in what appears to be a single-vehicle accident, he is confronted, basically, by the suspect in the Los Angeles slayings,” he said Saturday.
Tulare County inmate records indicated Carrillo had been booked on suspicion of second-degree robbery. Her bail was set at $60,000.
Meanwhile, L.A. investigators are still trying to determine a motive in the Reseda case.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the children’s father, Erik Denton, had sought custody of the kids in recent weeks. Last month, Denton petitioned a Tulare County court for the mother to undergo a mental health evaluation. A hearing in the the child custody dispute was scheduled for Wednesday.
Denton told the Times that he had attempted to get L.A. authorities involved in the case but “they wouldn’t help. The LAPD would not get involved.”
Carrillo was supposed to turn the children over to him on Sunday, Denton said.
A GoFundMe account organized to help the grieving father had raised nearly $30,000 as of early Monday afternoon.