Woman Held in Deaths of Her Disabled Sons

A 28-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of murder in the deaths of her two severely disabled children, who died under similar circumstances less than five years apart, police said.

Deborah Sue Robles was being held in connection with the deaths of 5-year-old John Peter Robles, who died Jan. 19, 1985, and 4-month-old Matthew Josiah Robles, who died Sept. 1, 1980. Police said that they suspect the children were suffocated.

Autopsies were performed on both children at the time they died, but the tests would not have revealed suffocation, coroner’s deputies said.

John Peter, who suffered from cerebral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair, was listed as having died of a “probable seizure disorder”; Matthew’s death was attributed to cardiopulmonary failure aggravated by hydrocephalus or water on the brain.

“We haven’t heard from the El Cajon police or the district attorney about this case,” San Diego Deputy Coroner Robert Grubb said Tuesday. “Obviously, there will have to be an investigation. They will have to tell us what the woman says happened and what they think happened, but until they come to us, we really can’t say any more.”

Lt. Randy Narramore, who heads the investigations unit in the El Cajon Police Department, said that police have evidence that both children were abused and neglected. Robles lives with her husband in El Cajon. Police said the husband is not a suspect in the case.

Narramore said that the San Diego County Welfare Department had taken John Peter out of the Robles household at one point but had returned him to the couple. Both the juvenile court and the county Child Protective Services agency are prohibited from releasing details about juvenile cases and could not confirm when the child had been taken from the parents or under what circumstances.

According to police accounts, the Robles called authorities Jan. 19, 1985, to report that “something was wrong” with John Peter. Paramedics were dispatched to the house, but the child died at the scene. Police began an investigation of the death and discovered that Matthew had died under similar conditions four years earlier.

The Robles were living in Santee at the time of Matthew’s death, but the Sheriff’s Department, which has jurisdiction in Santee, can find no records of an investigation of that death.