2 Sisters Avoid Murder Charges in Child Slayings

As prosecutors announced they will seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing two of his children and burying them in the forest, a judge Monday dismissed murder charges against his wife and her sister.

Petra Ricardo and Maria Ricardo are still accused of child endangerment and being accessories to murder after the fact.

“The judge followed the law, the way he should,” said attorney Philip Nameth, who is representing Maria Ricardo. “This is a court of law, not a court of morality.”

The murder charges were added in September, after prosecutors said a preliminary hearing revealed that the sisters stood by and did nothing to save the children from repeated abuse at the hands of their father, Marcos Esquivel.

“I think they had a duty to protect their children and that their failure to meet their legal obligation makes them liable for murder,” Deputy Dist. Atty. David M. Mintz said.

Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen disagreed.

“He didn’t feel that their actions amounted to aiding and abetting [Esquivel] in the commission of the crime,” Mintz explained.

Coen also dismissed charges of corporal punishment and assault by a caretaker against the women, who together bore Esquivel 14 children.

“I still think it’s way overcharged,” said Alan Kessler, who represents Petra Ricardo.

He said his client, mother of the dead children, had no control over what her husband did to them. They lived in another home with their father, their aunt and their half-siblings.

Also on Monday, prosecutors announced they will seek the death penalty against Esquivel because they say he tortured the children and committed more than one murder.

“The extreme cruelty and viciousness of his actions on small, helpless infants is what makes death the appropriate penalty in this case,” Mintz said.

Esquivel and Maria Ricardo were arrested in March after authorities found them and several children burying his 5-year-old son, Ernesto, in Angeles National Forest.

Petra Ricardo was arrested by Los Angeles sheriff’s detectives in May, after her 13-year-old son told authorities that Ernesto was actually the second sibling his father had killed and buried. The boy led detectives to the body of his 2-year-old sister, Guadalupe, who was buried in the same forest.

Medical examiners have said that both children were victims of chronic child abuse and showed signs of malnutrition.

Ernesto Esquivel, 5, suffered a broken arm and leg and 14 of his 24 ribs had been fractured and in various stages of healing when he died, authorities said.

Guadalupe Esquivel, 2, had suffered two broken legs, a broken arm and a broken collarbone in the weeks or months before her death. The girl was killed when her head was pounded by or against a hard object, cracking her skull.

During a September hearing, one of Esquivel’s surviving children testified that their father screamed at them and beat them nearly every day for everything from not selling enough corn to crying after being beaten. Most of the beatings went to Guadalupe and Ernesto.

Kessler and Nameth of the alternate public defender’s office have tried to portray the sisters as battered women who were so controlled by the man they shared that they could not stop him from beating his children to death.

Deputy Public Defender Arthur Braudrick, who is defending Esquivel, has said his client is “quite upset and quite remorseful.” He also said that the evidence may not support the additional charges.

He could not be reached for comment late Monday afternoon.