Woman to Be Tried in Slayings of Her 3 Children

A 35-year-old Riverside County woman was ordered Tuesday to stand trial for the murders of her three young children--a bloody knife attack that she tried to pin on her estranged husband in Los Angeles.

Dora Buenrostro, 35, led police Oct. 27, 1994, to her apartment in the small town of San Jacinto, where officers discovered the bodies of Susana, 9, and Vicente, 8. Later that night, the body of Deidra, 4, was found strapped in a car seat inside an abandoned building about 10 miles away.

Each had been stabbed in the neck.

Buenrostro, who stunned police at the time with her passive behavior, contended that her estranged husband, Alejandro (Alex) Buenrostro, had taken the couple’s youngest child two days earlier and that he was at her apartment with a knife that morning when she fled to the local police station for help, investigators said.

Her allegations led to Alejandro Buenrostro’s apprehension at a Los Angeles paint company within hours. But neighbors and co-workers vouched that he was either at home or at work in Los Angeles that morning, and he was released.

Two days before the killings, Buenrostro had visited her husband in Los Angeles, and during the night he woke up and discovered her standing over his bed with a knife, authorities said. He called Los Angeles police, who found her on the front porch, took the knife from her and sent her home to San Jacinto in what was considered at the time a domestic dispute.

San Jacinto Police Sgt. Fred Rodriguez said Tuesday that Buenrostro’s interview with police before her arrest “was like a roller coaster. She went from laughing and joking to being tired to being nonchalant, but she never showed remorse or sadness, even after we told her we found the body of her third child.”

On Tuesday, Riverside County Judge Edward Webster ordered her to stand trial after a 45-minute preliminary hearing at which her defense attorney asked only one question.

Buenrostro, shackled and wearing a blue jail jumpsuit, sat quietly and cradled her chin in her left hand during the hearing.

A jury last week deliberated about 45 minutes before concluding that she is competent to stand trial despite defense contentions that she is psychotic.

Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Soccio said he has not decided whether to seek the death penalty. Soccio said he believes she killed her children because she was jealous that her husband might be seeing other women. “She showed less emotion about the murders than did the police who discovered the children’s bodies,” he said.

Among the evidence against her, Soccio said, was blood in her purse and car.