LOS ANGELES (AP) – Erik Denton was supposed to see his three young children last Sunday, the one day every two weeks that he may be with them.
The three-year-old Joanna, her 2-year-old brother, Terry, and the six-month-old sister, Sierra, lived with their mother – Denton’s ex-girlfriend – in Los Angeles. Their father was afraid for their safety and applied to the court for custody on March 1, claiming that their mother, Liliana Carrillo, was misleading and took the children and refused to tell him where they were.
Carrillo, in turn, filed a restraining order against him, claiming Denton was an alcoholic who may have sexually abused their oldest child.
While the case was being handled by family courts in Tulare and Los Angeles counties, the parents traded accusations in dozens of pages of documents. Police were called, social workers were consulted, disturbing text messages and Facebook messages were stored as legal exhibits.
A week ago, a judge in Los Angeles agreed to move the case to Tulare County, where a trial would take place on Wednesday.
It would be too late.
The children were found dead by their maternal grandmother in her Los Angeles apartment on Saturday. Carrillo was their alleged killer and was arrested in Tulare County, nearly 322 miles north of the scene.
LA detectives want to extradite her because the coroner is doing autopsy on the children. Capt. Chris Waters, who oversees the youth section of the LAPD, said the investigation is continuing. She expressed her condolences and said the deaths were particularly tragic during the National Month for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
Denton, as well as attorneys who represented Carrillo and Denton in their detention case, did not return requests for comment Tuesday.
A memorial of photographs, candles, flowers and balloons honored their siblings while their father tried to understand why his daughters and son were left in their mother’s care despite multiple red flags.
“I am afraid for my children’s physical and mental well-being,” Denton wrote in court documents.
The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, the largest child protection agency in the country, was involved in the case. In a statement, the department declined to comment on its role, but said it was “joining the community in mourning.”
“Erik’s hands were bound by the law,” said dr. Teri Miller, a Los Angeles doctor who is Denton’s cousin, helped him get custody of the children. She told The Los Angeles Times: “He jumped through every hoop placed in front of him to get the kids back safely.”
Denton’s court documents tell of Carrillo’s postpartum depression after the birth of their middle child. She starts therapy but stops. She has self-medication with marijuana, he claims. In texts and social media posts, she said things like “I wish I had never had children” and threatened to kill herself.
Carrillo also believed she was’ solely responsible ‘for the coronavirus pandemic, Denton writes, and she thinks Porterville, the city of Tulare County where he, Carrillo and the children lived, was home to a’ giant sex shop. ‘
At the end of February, her behavior worsened, court documents show. During an outing in the park, their eldest daughter fell and landed on her groin area and later said it hurt. Carrillo believed the pain was that Denton was molesting her, a claim he denied. He said she was checked by a doctor who found no evidence of abuse; Carrillo said the investigation was not thorough enough.
On February 25, Carrillo apparently tried to leave their home with the children in the middle of the night. Denton called 911 and Carrillo did not believe the respondent was really a member of the police department. She threatened to take the children to Mexico, where she has family.
The next day, a social worker contacted Denton and said she was concerned about Carrillo’s mental state. She encouraged him to intervene in court, and Denton filed motives in Tulare County on March 1.
“I’m very worried about my partner,” Denton wrote, “and want to give her the help she needs to recover from this mental breakdown and to become stable. I want her interaction with the children to be safe and healthy. ”
Carrillo requested a temporary restraint 12 days later in LA County. Denton and Carrillo agreed by the courts to swap Denton’s days to see the kids, to swap – a few hours every second Sunday.
Last Sunday, it was supposed to be just his second visit to the kids according to the new schedule.
Instead, he spent it in grief.