Mother Who Shot Her Baby Will Be Tried on Murder Charge

A young woman who said she accidentally shot her baby was ordered Friday to stand trial for murder after a judge heard testimony that the gun was pressed to the child’s head and fired.

At a preliminary hearing for Shantae Molina, 20, of Laguna Niguel, Orange County sheriff’s investigator David Guest testified that a coroner’s autopsy indicated that 9-month-old Armani Shyloh Contreras died from a “contact wound.”

Molina had told investigators that she accidentally shot the child Oct. 16 after hearing what she thought was an intruder crunching on the gravel outside the house.

But Guest, one of several witnesses in Orange County Superior Court on Friday, said Molina’s statements to police that she had fired her stepfather’s semiautomatic handgun four times accidentally, pausing after two shots to throw away spent shell casings and move to another room, “did not seem reasonable.”

Guest said that police found under Molina’s bed a newspaper clipping about a woman who had killed her baby.

Molina’s attorney, Eric Lampel, disputed nearly every aspect of the evidence and of Guest’s testimony. He said that a “contact wound” can mean anything from a gun pressed to a distance of a foot or more. He said a paramedic reported finding no gunpowder residue on the baby’s head.

Lampel questioned the investigator at length about a size 12 footprint found outside Molina’s house, suggesting that it could have been that of an intruder.

Molina’s mother, Olga Welch, and stepfather, Ken Welch, testified that there were guns in the house, that Molina knew it and that she was not given lessons on how to use the weapons.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robin Polk questioned Armando Mendoza, the father of Molina’s baby, about an instance when Molina reportedly picked up a gun and threatened to kill herself.

Mendoza said he had been told by one of Molina’s friends that she had pointed a gun at herself but that he believed she did so because she was “stressed” about being pregnant and was having difficulties with her family.

Polk also asked about a letter to Mendoza found in Molina’s room. It stated, “. . . sometimes I think maybe if I hurt myself or something stupid to make you open your eyes,” then Mendoza would treat her better.

Mendoza testified that he was not sure if the handwriting was Molina’s.

Under cross-examination by Lampel, Mendoza said he felt he had been threatened by detectives during questioning and coerced into saying certain things.

Molina remains free on bail pending her trial, set to begin Feb. 9. She faces 35 years to life in prison if convicted, Polk said.

Outside the courtroom, Lampel characterized Guest’s testimony as “just poppycock.”

The allegation that the gun was pressed to the baby’s head is “the only thing that gives them a reason for their overcharging in this case,” he said of the prosecution, “and it is disputed by 100 other things.”

Lampel said that, after hearing a noise outside, Molina fired the gun twice accidentally in her parents’ bedroom as she struggled to load the weapon with trembling hands. When she moved to the family room, where her baby was, she bent down to look out the window and fired twice more accidentally, he said.

“You’ll see at trial . . . that this was a loving, tightknit family and that this girl loved her baby,” he said.