The father of three young children killed in an apartment in Reseda over the weekend had made legal efforts in court to gain custody of the kids in recent weeks, and the mother was due in court Wednesday after the father requested a mental health evaluation for the mother.
Erik Denton began filing petitions in Tulare County Superior Court in March for sole custody of the couple’s children, now identified by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office as Sierra Denton Carrillo, 6 months, Terry Denton Carrillo, 2, and Joanna Denton Carrillo, 3.
"She has removed our children from their home and refuses to disclose their location," "…saying I will never have my kids again," Denton hand-wrote in an emergency court filing March 4.
"She is erratic and unstable," and, "experiencing a psychotic episode and experiencing paranoia and hallucinations," he said in the court filing.
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The attorney who represented the mother in the custody proceedings declined to discuss that case or the murder accusation.
Denton told the court the children's mother, Liliana Carrillo, 30, now accused by LAPD detectives of killing the children, made statements about regretting having children and wanting to harm herself.
"She believes she is solely responsible for the COVID 19 pandemic. She also believes the entire town of Porterville is a giant sex trafficking ring," according to the court filing.
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A judge issued an order the same day that said the children were not to be removed from Tulare County or the United States, and that allowed Carrillo professionally supervised visits with the children.
On March 12 Carrillo obtained a temporary restraining order against Denton in Los Angeles Superior Court, and on March 26 the Tulare County judge made an order for the parents to share custody.
Family court records showed a hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, April 14, 2021 on Denton’s request to compel a mental health examination of Carrillo, who was arrested Saturday on suspicion of killing the children, according to the LAPD.
The bodies of the children were discovered by their grandmother Saturday morning in her apartment in the 8000 block of Reseda Blvd. They had been stabbed to death.
LAPD detectives said Carrillo fled before the children’s bodies were discovered and was arrested in the town of Ponderosa, in Tulare County north of Bakersfield, Saturday afternoon.
