Mother Charged With Murder in 4 Girls’ Deaths

Prosecutors filed murder charges Monday against a 34-year-old woman for allegedly suffocating her four young daughters and trying to cover up the killings by setting her house on fire--crimes that carry the death penalty.

Authorities allege that Sandi Nieves coaxed the girls into the family kitchen for a slumber party a week ago today, and suffocated them using natural gas from the oven. Firefighters responding to an emergency call found the girls the next day, dead in their sleeping bags.

“The question is whether we will seek the death penalty, and we have not decided that yet,” said Victoria Pipkin, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. “We’ll make that decision as we get closer to trial.”

Nieves was charged with four counts of murder with special circumstances. They are potentially capital crimes, Pipkin said, because of multiple victims and the arson. The district attorney’s office charged Nieves separately with felony arson for setting the blaze, a small smoldering fire that caused little damage.

Prosecutors also charged Nieves with attempted murder for allegedly trying to kill her 14-year-old son, David Nieves, who was inside the home when the fire started.

David escaped, but suffered smoke inhalation injuries and was hospitalized for three days. He was released Friday to his biological father, Fernando Nieves of Victorville, said Janice Newbold, a spokeswoman for Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital.

Investigators have instructed the boy and his father not to speak publicly about the murders, or about their family life, the boy’s father said.

Nieves, who was also the biological father of two of the slain girls, said the family has received an outpouring of sympathy from people across the country, and even calls from strangers overseas.

“We’re really in a state of shock still. I just don’t know what to do,” he said.

Sandi Nieves remains in the jail ward of County-USC Medical Center, Pipkin said. She will be arraigned in San Fernando as soon as doctors approve her release.