An investigation was ongoing Sunday into a mother who was taken into custody after her three young children were stabbed to death at a Reseda apartment a day earlier.
The three children – ages 3, 2 and 6 months old – were found by their grandmother on Saturday morning, Los Angeles police said, and the mother, 30-year-old Liliana Carrillo, was apprehended hours later in Tulare County.
Teri Miller, cousin of the children’s father, told Fox11 that Carrillo was “very sick and she was not herself” in recent months. Miller said the father, whose name was not yet confirmed by officials, was reaching out to Child Protective Service and police to get Carrillo help and to get his children home safely.
Carrillo left with the children at the end of February, Miller said.
“He did everything that he could think of to get his kids back home safely and to get her help, too,” Miller said. “He still loved her, but she just was not herself. So he’s also frustrated with the system, because the system failed them.”
Miller said the father was shocked and devastated. He had plans to pick the children up on Sunday to buy them fish for their new fish tank, she said.
A GoFundMe page for the family shows a picture of the three young children with their father, who holds the youngest as the two other siblings appear to be playing with bubbles.
The father of the children, Erik Denton, told KTLA that he shared custody Carillo. He identified the children as 3-year-old Terry, 2-year-old Joanna and 6-month-old Sierra.
Lupe Cuevas, a neighbor of the Carrillo family, said Saturday that she often saw the grandmother with the three youngsters, who she described as angels.
A memorial that began Saturday night outside of the apartment in the 8000 block of Reseda Boulevard had grown on Sunday. People had left flowers, candles and toys in honor of the children.
Memo Chavez, of Northridge, and his wife Ann, were on their way to church on Sunday, but stopped at the memorial set up outside the Royal Villa Apartments to pray for the three children.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” said Chavez, who said he has made DoorDash deliveries at the apartment complex. His mother also lives nearby.
After hearing about the death of the three children on the news, “it just kept repeating in my head,” he said. “It’s unfathomable.”
