- Liliana Carrillo admitted to drowning her three young children to "protect" them.
- In an interview with KGET, Carrillo claimed she protected her children from being sex trafficked.
- The children's deaths came amid a custody battle with their father, who claimed Carrillo was delusional.
Liliana Carrillo admitted to killing her children in an interview with KGET, a local
Carrillo's three children, who were all under the age of five, were found dead in an apartment in San Fernando Valley on April 10.
Police arrested Carrillo later that day after she was reported for carjacking, saying she was the "sole suspect" of the murders.
Carrillo did an interview on Friday with KGET from a pre-trial facility in Lerdo, California. In the interview, she admitted to drowning her children.
"I drowned them," she said. "I did it as softly, I don't know how to explain it."
Carrillo told the station she "loved" three-year-old Joanna, two-year-old Terry, and six-month-old Sierra.
"I hugged them. I kissed them. I was apologizing the whole time," Carrillo went on to say. "I loved my kids."
Carrillo said she believed Erik Denton, the father of her children, was involved in human trafficking. She saw killing her children as a way to protect them from being trafficked.
"I didn't want them to be further abused," Carrillo said. "I wish this didn't have to be the case, but I promised to protect them."
Carrillo's mother discovered their bodies. She told KGET she intended to drive herself off of a cliff, but she was caught before she had the chance.
Carrillo was delusional and believed her children's father was involved in sex trafficking
Carrillo's behavior had been erratic in recent history, according to her social media posts and court records.
On Facebook, she posted about "random invasive feelings of despair and pain" and wrote that she was "hating being a parent," according to the Los Angeles Times.
More recently, court records detail that Carrillo had become consumed by the idea that Porterville, California, was home to a child sex trafficking ring, echoing delusions espoused by QAnon supporters, as reported by the LA Times.
The outlet also found that Carrillo accused Denton of being involved in human trafficking multiple times since October of 2020. Denton denies any allegations of abuse and wrote in court filings reported by the Associated Press that his children were not safe with Carillo.
On the morning of April 10, Carrillo reportedly wrote an over 100-page "manifesto" on why she was going to kill her children.
"I don't know when I became a target, but I know that Porterville is the root of all evil right now," she wrote, claiming that her children had been sexually abused by pedophiles in the area.
"I am removing myself and my children from this world because nothing will ever be the same," Carrillo wrote, according to the LA Times. "There is no going back from here."