Authorities received warnings months before dead three siblings

In the months before three young siblings died in a Reseda apartment, alarms about Liliana Carrillo’s ability to care for children grew louder.

Carrillo was “extremely paranoid” and erratic, according to her boyfriend’s report in court documents, which described her increasingly bizarre allegations: that she was “solely responsible” for the COVID-19 pandemic and that her hometown of Porterville was plagued by a pedophile ring is. .

“I’m afraid of my children’s physical and mental well-being,” the children’s father, Erik Denton, told a Tulare County judge last month before receiving physical supervision.

The warnings also reached officials in Los Angeles County. The province’s child welfare agency and the Los Angeles Police Department have been warned on several occasions that Carrillo is a danger to the young children, according to interviews by The Times with Denton and his family, along with court records and sources familiar with the ongoing investigation. .

The LA County Department of Children and Family Services has received at least two separate reports involving the family. But despite repeated conversations with the children’s father and family and a court order from a Tulare County judge restricting the mother’s supervision, social workers chose to keep the children with their mother, according to records and interviews.

“We constantly brought out all the right red flags about her behavior,” said Dr. Teri Miller, an emergency physician in LA, said. He is also a cousin of Denton and helped bring the children to safety. “The judge in Porterville listened and read all the information, but everyone in LA passed it on to someone else.”

Then on Saturday, the kids – Joanna, 3; Terry, 2; and Sierra, 6 months – were found dead in an apartment in Reseda. Two of the children showed signs of drowning, and all three sustained injuries indicating that they had faded. No cause of death was made public. The LAPD identified Carrillo, 30, as the suspect in their murders, and she was detained at the Tulare County Jail on Monday on suspicion of second-degree robbery.

LA County’s DCFS, the largest child welfare agency in the country, declined to comment on the details of the Carrillo case, citing the state’s confidentiality laws. In a statement, a spokesman for the agency said DCFS “joins the community in mourning.”

Denton, the child’s father, said in an interview and in petitions to a Tulare County judge that Carrillo had struggled with postpartum depression for years. She expressed thoughts about suicide and regularly made marijuana self-medication, he said in court documents, but in recent months she has ‘lost touch with reality’, he said.

The Tulare County Child Welfare Agency was likely to receive family warnings in late February. At the time, Carrillo accused the children’s father of taking part in a pedophile ring in Porterville and allowing someone to molest one of their daughters, according to Denton’s report in court records and interviews. Porterville police were called to the home, Denton said in court documents, but the officer made no arrests.

Days later, around Feb. 26, Carrillo’s mother drove from LA to pick up her daughter and their three children. Carrillo took the children’s legal documents and told Denton that she could ‘go to Mexico’, where she has family, and according to reports for days afterwards refused to share their place.

A Tulare County social worker reached out to Denton after contacting a mental health hotline, and according to records later filed in court, he said the social worker expressed concern about Carrillo’s paranoid and excited mental state and him ordered a court to intervene.

Denton obtained an emergency court order for custody of the children in March, and the judge ordered that Carrillo and the children be cared for in a special facility in Porterville.

Miller, the emergency physician, said she and Denton then went to LA County DCFS as well as the LAPD to notify the agencies that Carrillo had psychosis, took the children and hid in LA.

LAPD kmdt. Alan Hamilton said the department usually follows the direction of DCFS in matters of child custody.

“If DCFS told us they were going to the apartment and needed our help, we would have been there,” Hamilton said.

Miller and Denton said in interviews that they had several conversations with LA County social workers in which they both declare that Carrillo should not be alone with the children. One conversation with Denton lasted more than two hours, Miller said. Both recalled that at one point they had visited a social worker in Carrillo, but that they did not know the specific date or nature of the meeting, but they both felt afterwards that the agency was not inclined to consider Carrillo as’ to consider a threat.

“The social worker spoke to Erik and said, ‘I do not believe Liliana will harm these children,'” Miller said.

According to records, Carrillo received the order around March 12 and after that she went to the LAPD’s West Valley station, where Denton asked that she hand over all three children. There, an officer notified her of the consequences of failing to comply with the court order, according to a summary of the meeting Denton delivered in court. Carrillo apparently chose to disobey the order.

After Denton and Miller found out where Carrillo was, they said they also called the LAPD and begged police to take her to a mental health facility for psychiatric evaluation. Both told police Carrillo is a danger to the children and herself.

Denton said he was angry because the news of the killings of children became known, the LAPD suggested they were unaware of Carrillo when they declared officers were not to the house.

Miller said two officers met them at a parking lot to discuss Carrillo’s mental health condition, and that officers even called a supervisor to the scene.

“I told them she could kill the children. It would have to be on their body camera video from the night, ”Miller said.

“Medically speaking, it was a clear psychiatric emergency,” she added. “If she had come to my ER and the family would have told me about these errors and concerns, I would have detained her for a psychiatric evaluation.”

Authorities became further aware of problems with the family around early April, when Carrillo requested a temporary restraint on Denton and accused him of sexually abusing their eldest daughter. Denton denied the allegation. According to Miller, Carrillo also addressed the abuse directly to LA County DCFS, which said social workers did not conduct a formal interview with Denton. In addition, Carrillo committed an assault on DCFS against a friend of Denton’s, Miller said.

On Saturday, Carrillo’s mother discovered the three children killed in the apartment in Reseda, which led to a major search for Carrillo, who fled north.

According to authorities, Carrillo was driving north on Highway 65, but crashed into her vehicle about 15 miles outside Delano. When another driver came to the rescue on Saturday, she allegedly drove a hood off the motorist’s silver Toyota truck, authorities said. Carrillo was eventually arrested near Ponderosa, in Tulare County.

For Denton and his family, they remain plagued by sadness and frustrated by the missed opportunities to protect the children.

“Erik’s hands were bound by the law,” Miller said. “He jumped through every hoop placed in front of him to get the kids back safely.”