Mother Faces 4 Murder Charges in Girls’ Deaths

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

Authorities allege that Sandi Nieves coaxed the girls into the family kitchen for a slumber party a week ago today, and suffocated them in a cloud of 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.

“I would like to speak my mind about a few things, but this just isn’t the right time,” Fernando Nieves said Monday. “There’s a lot of stuff going on that people just have no clue about, and I’d like to set the record straight.”

Nieves, who also is 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.

Bank of America is setting up a special fund in memory of the slain sisters: the Nieves-Folden Memorial Fund, Fernando Nieves said.

Sandi Nieves remained 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.

Thus far, Nieves has no attorney. But prosecutors have contacted members of the Public Defenders Office to alert them they may be called upon to represent her.

The coroner’s office completed autopsies on the girls Friday. But investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have ordered the office not to reveal the cause of death or any other autopsy results, said coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier.

The girls’ bodies were released Monday to a mortuary in Perris, Carrier said. They had lived in the Riverside County city before their parents were divorced.

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Their father, David Folden, has arranged the memorial service for the girls, which will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Perris. The burials will follow immediately at Perris Valley Cemetery.

Folden, 47, lives in Perris.

The killings occurred one day before Nieves and Folden were scheduled to appear in a Riverside County court to reconsider custody arrangements of their children. Folden was fighting for more time with the children, which Nieves strongly opposed.

The couple separated in February 1997. Nieves and the children moved to Valencia shortly after.

Folden is the biological father of two of the girls killed: Kristl D. Folden, 7, and Jaqlene M. Folden, 5. When married to Nieves, Folden adopted her three oldest children: David, the 14-year-old who survived the fire, and his two sisters, who were killed; Nikolet A. Folden, 12, and Rashel H. Folden, 11.

Fernando Nieves is the biological father of David, Nikolet and Rashel.