Valencia Mother Pleads Not Guilty in Daughters’ Slayings

Sandi Nieves, the mother accused of murdering her four young daughters after sheriff’s deputies found their bodies on the kitchen floor of their partially burned Valencia home earlier this month, pleaded not guilty to murder and arson charges in San Fernando Municipal Court on Tuesday.

Nieves will return to court Aug. 27, when a date for her preliminary hearing will be set, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

Nieves was charged with four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of arson with great bodily injury after sheriff’s deputies, responding to reports of a fire, discovered the bodies of her four daughters in the rear of the family’s rented home July 1.

The girls were Nikolet and Rashel Folden-Nieves, 12 and 11, and Kristl and Jaqlene Folden, 5 and 7.

The coroner has not yet released an official cause of death, pending toxicology tests, said coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier. However, investigators have said the girls apparently died in a cloud of natural gas from an oven turned on by their mother. The girls were found wearing nightclothes, tucked into sleeping bags in the kitchen where sheriff’s investigators say Nieves persuaded them to have a slumber party.

At least four fires were also set in the home as Nieves allegedly tried to kill herself and her 14-year-old son, David Nieves.

Nieves is being held without bail at Twin Towers Jail in downtown Los Angeles.