A California mother who admitted to killing her three children in a recent television news interview in prison describes herself as a “social justice fighter” who traveled up and down the state to advocate for human trafficking .
Liliana Carrillo, 30, told KGET-TV that she drowned her children – 3-year-old Joanna Denton Carrillo, her 2-year-old brother, Terry, and her 6-month-old sister, Sierra – in an attempt to protects them from abuse by their father, Erik Denton, whom she accused of being part of a sex trade. She believes Denton abused the children and that they were in danger of becoming human traffickers.
He denied the allegations.
“I’ve always been a person who actually helped people,” Carrillo said. “I have always been a fighter for social justice, equal rights, human rights activist,”
According to her, Denton moved her and the children from Los Angeles to Porterville, a small town in central California, where the family lived until the end of February, where she said human trafficking had taken place.
CALIFORNIA MAN CHARGED WITH MURDER 5 WEEKS AFTER WOMAN, 8 YEARS FOUND STUCK AFTER DEATH
Liliana Carrillo, a mother whose three children were killed in Los Angeles last week, admitted to killing them during a recent television interview. (Los Angeles Police Department via AP, File)
“There’s something going on in Porterville that needs to be investigated,” she said. “I hope someone who specializes in human trafficking can represent me, because that’s exactly what’s going on. We’re taken care of.”
The children were reportedly stabbed to death on April 10 at a scene that shook many, including first responders, some of whom subsequently needed counseling. During the interview, she said she drowned them.
“I drowned them,” said Carrillo, who was wearing a brown jumpsuit with her arms cuffed to her waist and a bandage on her left arm.
“I did it so gently, I do not know how to explain it, but I hugged and kissed them and I apologized all the time,” she said. “I loved my children.”
She admitted that she was completely sober at the time of the murder, despite what she called a history of postpartum depression and marijuana use. She has not yet been charged in the Los Angeles murder.
The children were found dead by their grandmother in her Reseda apartment on Saturday. Carrillo was arrested hours later nearly 200 miles north of Tulare County. She told the TV station that she wanted to kill herself by driving off a cliff, but her car got stuck in a ditch.
She then allegedly stabbed a Good Samaritan vehicle with a car kayak. She is being held in Kern County on charges of car hijacking and car theft, of which she pleaded not guilty.
Photographs, candles, flowers and balloons are placed as a memorial to three children killed in the Royal Villa apartment complex in the Reseda section of Los Angeles. Authorities have identified 3-year-old Joanna Denton Carrillo, her 2-year-old brother, Terry, and her 6-month-old sister, Sierra. (AP Photo / Richard Vogel)
In the court documents, he said Carrillo is misleading and refuses to tell him where his children are. He also said she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder due to child abuse.
“I am very concerned about my partner,” Denton wrote in the custody documents, “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. be. “
Denton’s court documents tell of Carrillo’s depression after giving birth after the birth of their middle child. In texts and social media posts, she said things like “I wish I had never had children” and threatened to kill herself.
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She said she did not want her children to endure more abuse.
“I wish my children were alive, yes,” she said. “I wish I didn’t have to do that? Yes. But I prefer that they not be regularly tortured and abused for the rest of their lives.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.