A grandmother went inside a Reseda apartment Saturday morning and found her three young grandchildren had been stabbed to death, Los Angeles police said. A few hours late, the mother of the children was arrested as the primary suspect in the killings after she allegedly carjacked a vehicle and traveled more than four hours away--north of Bakersfield.
The gruesome discovery was made around 9:30 a.m. in the 8000 block of Reseda Boulevard, Sgt. David Bambrick of the LAPD's West Valley Division said.
The children's ages were 3, 2 and 6 months old.
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Joanna Denton Carrillo was 3 years old; Terry Denton Carrillo was 2;
and Sierra Denton Carrillo was 6 months, 23 days old, according to the
coroner's office. Autopsies were pending as of Monday.
Police initially identified Liliana Carrillo, 30, as a person of interest in the case and said Carrillo, the mother of the three young children, was suspected in a carjacking in the Bakersfield area on Saturday.
A short time later, authorities at the crime scene announced Carrillo had been caught and taken into custody in Ponderosa, in Tulare County--north of Bakersfield.
Carrillo is the primary suspect in the unconscionable killings, according to homicide investigators.
"My heart is broken," Mishal Hashimi, a resident in the Reseda neighborhood, said. "Every time I see news about children like this, my heart breaks in pieces. And now, it's like right in front of my building--it's unbelievable."
The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services is part of the investigation and was on scene Saturday, but police did not say if the father of the children had been located or if there was any past issue with DCFS.
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"Leave the house, leave the children, leave your family or whatever, but don't harm children," said Hashimi. "It's so sad."
