Mother Arrested in Baby’s Death Maintains Innocence : Crime: She insists the infant, who died of blunt-force trauma, was kidnaped by two men, as initially reported.

A 3-month-old girl suffering from Down’s syndrome died of blunt-force trauma, and inconsistent statements given by the child’s parents led to their arrests on suspicion of murder, police said.

Oscar Aguilar Lezama and Rocio Cazares Huerta, who told police Sunday that their daughter, Jeny, had been kidnaped, are expected to be arraigned today in Superior Court on charges that they killed the child.

The couple were arrested late Tuesday night, but on Wednesday morning in an interview at Orange County Jail, Cazares stuck to the version of events she described earlier: Two masked men in dark clothes grabbed the child from her arms, hit the infant on the head and threw the baby into the back of a four-door sedan before driving away down a darkened city street.

Although authorities declined to detail the inconsistencies in the parents’ statements or reveal the exact injuries that caused the baby’s death, police said they no longer believe the child was kidnaped from the 1800 block of Collins Avenue on Sunday night.

“Now, we feel we have the suspects in this case,” Orange Police Sgt. Jim Hudson said.

He said that police searched the couple’s apartment Tuesday night but that he could not reveal what they may have taken.

Ogla Tenorea, who along with Jilma Palacios shares the apartment with the family, said officers arrived at the Parklane Gardens complex on Monroe Street about 7 p.m. and asked that the apartment be cleared until the search was concluded, about 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Tenorea said investigators took with them a piece of furniture--a television and stereo stand that had been in the parents’ bedroom.

“They also seemed to take my blanket,” Tenorea said. “I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

At the Orange County Women’s Jail, Cazares, in an hourlong interview, told in more detail the story she has recounted over and over to police: that she and Aguilar loved their baby, in spite of her illness, and that two men who spoke to her only in English took the infant away from her. The only words she understood, she said, were stupid, shut up and no move.

She cried as she told the story, over the baby and over the legal trouble she and Aguilar are now facing, she said. At other moments during the interview, she smiled as she recalled the tiny infant that she said she loved as much as her other daughter, 2-year-old Isabel.

“Police said to me, ‘He (Aguilar) killed her, didn’t he? And he sent you to throw away the body?’ ” Cazares said. “But I am not capable of throwing my baby away . . . nor he of killing her,” she said, crying.

She also said that investigators told her the main reason they didn’t believe her account was that the autopsy showed the child died between 6 and 9 p.m.

Because of the investigation, police won’t reveal the exact time of death, but Cazares reported that the kidnaping happened about 9:15 p.m.

“I don’t know if that’s true (about the autopsy),” Cazares said. “Perhaps they are trying to get the truth out with their lies, but maybe those are lies too.”

She said investigators told her that her husband had said the baby fell off a bed.

Cazares said investigators played back a tape in which her husband reportedly was asked about the fall, and she said she heard him say: “ Si, si .” Cazares said she believes investigators were playing back incomplete versions of her husband’s answers to confuse her.

“They told me the baby was found in bad shape, looking very ugly,” the mother said. “Maybe that’s why they suspect something, or maybe they said it to scare me, or maybe the baby died on those two men and they got scared and left her there. I don’t know what happened.”

Police found the child’s body behind a beauty salon in the 1000 block of North Tustin Street.

“I had no problems with her, even though she had that illness,” Cazares said. “I saw her the same way as my other daughter. I loved her. I miss her so much, and I miss Isabel too.”

Cazares and Aguilar were questioned separately about the incident in the hours following their initial report. On Tuesday, shortly after noon, Cazares said she called police to ask when she could see the baby’s body. Police then took both into custody and questioned them again and arrested them that night, she said.

Cazares claims to have told police the same story throughout her questioning: One of the men, she said, grabbed her by the shoulders while the other grabbed her handbag.

“The baby was screaming, and I think they hit her, and then she was quiet,” Cazares said. “When I turned to see what the other one was doing, I saw him throw the baby in the car, in the back seat. And then they jumped in, and I saw them driving down the street.”

Cazares said that earlier Sunday, smugglers had demanded $600 from her to deliver her older brothers, whom they had brought to Cazares’ home from Mexico. But because her husband had been unemployed for some time, she didn’t have the money, and the smugglers took her brothers away. Cazares said she wants police “to know that I am not guilty. They should be looking for whoever did this instead of accusing us of something we are not guilty of.”

News of the arrests shocked the family’s neighbors in the Orange apartment complex, who described Cazares and Aguilar as “good people” and “good parents.”

Tenorea said she arrived at the apartment about 8 p.m. the night of the incident and heard the baby crying. She said she left at 9 p.m., after Cazares had reportedly left with the child to walk to the neighborhood grocery store.

“Oscar was very upset,” Tenorea said, describing the scene at the apartment when she returned. “(He) told us they didn’t know who had taken their baby. Rocio couldn’t talk. She wouldn’t even answer us when we spoke to her. She was so depressed.”