Funeral Officiant Calls 4 Sisters ‘Too Lovely to Live on This Earth’

It was a pleasant summer morning in Perris, the kind of bright day the Nieves and Folden sisters loved during their short lives, mostly spent here in Riverside County.

Under these familiar skies, four small white coffins were rolled into church Thursday for the funeral of Jaqlene, 5, and Kristl Folden, 7, and Rashel, 11, and Nikolet Nieves-Folden, 12.

“They were too pure, they were too lovely to live on this earth,” Lynn Jones, president of the Perris Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told about 200 mourners.

As the girls were being mourned, their mother, Sandi Nieves, stood accused of suffocating them with natural gas from the kitchen oven during a slumber party at their Valencia home.

The killings came just before Nieves, 34, was due in court to negotiate custody of the two younger girls with their father, Nieves’ second husband, David Folden, 47, who stayed in Perris after the couple separated two years ago. The two older girls were the children of their mother’s first husband, Fernando Nieves.

The four girls were found July 1 wearing nightclothes, tucked into sleeping bags in the kitchen, where sheriff’s investigators say Nieves persuaded them to have the slumber party.

The mother allegedly tried to cover up the killings by setting a fire that caused little damage to the outside of the house. County Fire Department paramedics responding to her call about 1 p.m. took her and her son, David Nieves, 14, to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.

Because she remains hospitalized in the jail ward at Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center, Nieves has yet to be arraigned on four counts of murder with special circumstances--which could make her eligible for the death penalty--and one count each of attempted murder and felony arson.

Thursday’s mourners included the fathers of the children, other relatives and countless members of the church who knew the family from the five years they attended services there.

“I came to pay my respects,” said Mary Kilborn, whose children played with Nieves’ daughters. They were “a very lovely family.”

When the coffins were pushed to the front of the church at the start of the funeral, people began to cry. One woman turned away and covered her face.

Phil and Patricia Rogers, neighbors of the family and also church members, told the crowd about the children. The couple talked of their own experiences and quoted others.

Phil Rogers, choking with emotion, recounted his arrivals at his house in the evening. He said the girls playing nearby often ran to him as if he were their grandfather.

“When I was lucky, I got hugs from the older girls and kisses on the cheek from the younger ones,” he said. “Their love of the gospel was a bright spot in all of us.”

Patricia Rogers remembered caring for the girls and their brother, their trips to a farm, the girls’ laughter as they jumped on a trampoline.

Nikolet was shy, sweet and affectionate, Patricia Rogers said, Kristl bossy and fun. “I always thought she could be the first woman president of the United States.”

Rashel and Nikolet loved to dress up. The two were ecstatic when they got braces, she said, because they knew then they would have straight teeth.

And Jaqlene was funny. “She would follow me around the house,” Patricia Rogers said. “I always thought she had the funniest giggle.”

Jones told the mourners that the parents and children, preferring the front pews during services, were exemplary members of the church.

“All five children were taught the correct principles,” he said.

The apparent solid family bond makes the girls’ alleged slayings at their mother’s hands even more puzzling.

“It’s not an easy thing to think of those circumstances,” said Tim Rudd, a church official selected as the family’s spokesman. “We can’t pass judgment on her--I don’t think that would be right to do right now.”

The last mourners saw of the girls before burial was the sisters’ smiling portraits resting on the coffins.

They were buried at Perris Valley Cemetery, just a short walk from the church that was a home to them.