California Mother Claims She Killed Her 3 Children in Order to ‘Protect’ Them From Abusive Father A woman in California accused of killing her three children, all under the age of 5, admitted to murdering them during an interview with a Los Angeles television station. Liliana Carrillo told KGET-TV in a jailhouse interview she drowned the children because she didn’t want them “to be further abused” by their father and wanted to “protect” them. The 30-year-old Hispanic woman had custody over the children at the time of the murder and was in a dispute over them—Joanna, 3; Terry, 2; and Sierra, 6 months—with the father, identified as Erik Denton of Porterville.