A 30-year-old woman charged with stabbing her three daughters to death pleaded not guilty Monday by reason of insanity.
Carol Ann Coronado entered her plea after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo unsealed a Sept. 22 indictment of Coronado on three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
Coronado is due back in court on Oct. 17 for a pretrial hearing to be held in Compton.
She is charged with trying to kill her mother, who found the children’s bodies May 20 at the family’s home in an unincorporated area near Carson.
The girls’ grandmother went to an address in the 1000 block of West 223rd Street after having a telephone conversation with her daughter that worried her that afternoon.
Coronado’s mother ran out of the house screaming after seeing the girls – – Sophia, 2, Yazmine, 16 months, and Xenia, 2 months — stabbed to death.
The father of the children, who was outside working on a car, then called 911.
A neighbor said Coronado was covered in blood and naked except for a blanket when she was taken away by sheriff’s deputies. She was initially hospitalized with self-inflicted stab wounds, then transferred to a jail ward at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center.
Several knives were taken from the home as evidence.
Coronado was initially charged in May and pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors chose to seek an indictment to speed up the time to trial.
At her original arraignment, defense attorney Stephen Allen said Coronado’s husband, Rudy, was standing by her. Allen said his client suffered from postpartum depression and that her family was unsure what to look for or how to deal with the illness.
Coronado was briefly in the Army after high school, but her military career was cut short by an injury, according to police.
The indictment includes special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and personal use of a knife as a deadly/ weapon, making Coronado eligible for the death penalty.
— City News Service