Family Bids Final Farewell to 3 Children

Weeping openly and casting flowers onto three little caskets, friends and family said goodbye Friday to the young children killed by carbon monoxide as they rode in the camper shell of the family pickup.

“In these last five days,” said their father, Rolando Juarez, “little by little I have realized the terrible reality that my kids are dead and that nothing in the world can bring them back.”

His children--Natalie, 6, Kimberlyn, 2, and Kevin, 1--were killed Monday morning by the odorless gas swirling into the camper as they slept on an overnight drive home from San Francisco to Hollywood.

At the cemetery Friday, Juarez occupied himself before the burial by adjusting the flowers on his children’s coffins. Then, eyes closed and meditative, he stood pinching the bridge of his nose before he broke into tears and embraced a friend.

At Inglewood Park Cemetery, a Catholic priest and an evangelist minister gave rousing invocations in Spanish to about 60 people.

The services began at a Los Angeles mortuary. In an open casket, teddy bears rested against the legs of Natalie, the oldest child. Propped against the casket was a construction paper flower made by her classmates at Selma Elementary School in Hollywood. “I’m going to miss taking care of them because it was a 24-hour-a-day job,” said Estela Aguilar, 19, mother of the two youngest children. “I’m going to miss them being there.”