2 Sisters No Longer Accused of Murder

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

Petra Ricardo and Maria Ricardo, who together bore Marcos Esquivel 14 children, 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 had been added in September, after prosecutors said a preliminary hearing revealed that they stood by and did nothing to save the children from repeated abuse by 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 said.

Coen also dismissed charges of corporal punishment and assault by a caretaker against the women.

“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 Monday, prosecutors announced that they will seek the death penalty against Esquivel because 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 the 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-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 were 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 have tried to portray the sisters as battered women who were so controlled by the man they shared that they could not prevent him from beating his children to death.