The trial of a woman charged with fatally stabbing her three young daughters in an unincorporated area near Carson last year was put on hold Friday following a courtroom outburst by the defendant.
Both sides are due back in court Nov. 30 for a report on the doctor’s findings.
Coronado yelled, “I need my mother! I need my husband! I need my children! Right now!’ the Daily Breeze reported.
Coronado was dragged kicking and screaming from the courtroom, according to the newspaper.
Coronado, 32, is charged with the May 20, 2014, murders of her daughters, Sophia, 2, Yazmine, 16 months, and Xenia, 2 months, who were stabbed to death and lined up in order of their ages.
She is also charged with the attempted murder of her mother, who found the children’s bodies.
The murder charges include the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, along with the allegation that she personally used a knife. Prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty against her.
Coronado waived her right to a jury trial so the case is being heard by Ocampo, who will also hear the second phase of the trial — the sanity phase — to determine if she was sane at the time of the crimes if she is convicted of the killings.
In testimony Thursday, the woman’s husband, Rodolfo “Rudy” Coronado, told the judge that his wife was behaving strangely in the days leading up to the crimes.
Coronado said he began sleeping on the couch three or four days before the killings “because she had been acting weird throughout the days before.” “She would just do weird things like go and shut the power off” while he was watching television and, on one occasion, jumping and landing on his chest, he said.
He said that his wife “screamed like a weird scream” for no reason shortly after he woke up the day of the killings, and that he called her mother to report that she was acting weirdly.
Rodolfo Coronado testified that he went outside to work outside on his truck in an effort to avoid an argument and was later summoned to a McDonald’s restaurant after his wife said her car had run out of gasoline.
He said he questioned his wife about what she was doing and what was going through her head.
“They were a little dirty, like I could smell one of the diapers,” the defendant’s husband said of the children, telling the judge that his wife had a “blank stare” on her face.
He said that the family returned home and that he later went inside to inform his wife that he was going to an auto parts store.
“She was laying on the bed,” he said.
Rodolfo Coronado testified that he talked to his wife from the doorway and told her to get up and that she responded that she was tired.
He noted that the couple’s oldest daughter had feces “all over her,” and said that he questioned his wife about what was wrong and “what extreme this is going to get to.”
“I definitely knew something was wrong,” he said. “She didn’t act the way Carol acts.”
He said he left the home to go to the auto parts store and was back working under his truck when his mother-in-law came out of the house screaming, “Don’t go in there. She killed them.”
The woman’s husband said he ran inside the couple’s home, pushed the bedroom door open and saw his daughters laying on the bed, but he didn’t see any blood.
Rodolfo Coronado testified that he saw his wife with a knife in her left hand and that she told him that she loved him before stabbing herself. He described his wife as having a “blank stare” on her face.
He said he saw knives lined up on the table “after the fact” that were normally kept in a cabinet out of their daughters’ reach.
He said he ran outside to get his phone and call 911.
During cross-examination, Deputy District Attorney Emily Spear asked him to look at a photo of his three daughters while they were alive.
“I don’t want to see it,” he said.
Defense attorney Stephen T. Allen agreed that the defense would stipulate that the photos were of the couple’s three children.
When asked if he didn’t want his wife prosecuted, he eventually responded, “I don’t know I’m confused on that answer. I have mixed emotions …”
He called his wife “the best woman that I’ve met so far,” and said he didn’t recall questioning his wife’s parenting abilities when he spoke with investigators after the crime.
The woman’s husband said that he and his wife began arguing after they began having children and acknowledged that he complained to her about the house being dirty.
— City News Service