Firefighter Tells of Grisly Find in Nieves’ Home

When firefighters arrived, Sandi Nieves and her son were sitting on the sofa of their Saugus home, covered in soot from their heads to their bare feet. The fire that the woman is accused of starting was already out.

She answered the door when the Los Angeles County Fire Department arrived, only to sit back down on the living room couch. Perplexed firefighters asked the woman and her son to step outside of the dark, musty, smoke-infused house.

That’s when they found the girls.

Bruce Alpern, a firefighter and paramedic, was checking the house when he found the darkened kitchen filled with sleeping bags and blankets. He pulled the shades up to get a better look only to gaze upon four limp girls, ages 5 to 12.

“They were sort of stacked on top of each other,” Alpern testified in court Tuesday. “I yelled to my partner: ‘We have four bodies in here.’ ”

The men checked the little girls for signs of life, but found none. They called police.

On the first day of the preliminary hearing for their mother, who is facing capital murder charges for allegedly gassing the girls to death, police and paramedics for the first time publicly described what they saw when they arrived at Nieves’ rented home on Cherry Creek Drive last July.

The hearing, during which Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen will decide whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial, is expected to conclude Friday.

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Authorities allege Nieves shut her four daughters in the kitchen, telling them it was a “slumber party,” then turned on the oven and opened the door, letting them suffocate as the room filled with natural gas. She is also accused of trying to kill her 14-year-old son, David, and setting the house on fire.

Nieves was in a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband at the time, authorities said.

Sheriff’s homicide Det. Robert Taylor said he found a plastic gasoline can in the woman’s converted-garage bedroom and noticed air vents were covered with rags and taped shut.

The district attorney’s office said paramedics were summoned after Nieves dialed 911 and said she could not awaken her daughters.

Alpern said Nieves and her son displayed no emotion when told the girls were dead.

“She said: ‘My kids, how are my kids?’ My partner stated they were deceased. She said: ‘Oh’ and that was it,” Alpern said.

Under cross-examination, Alpern said he did not smell natural gas in the kitchen and that the oven was off and a sliding door and window were open when he arrived.

He also said he initially thought Nieves and her son were under the influence of drugs because they were lethargic. But he said standard questions showed they were fully conscious.

Both were treated for possible smoke inhalation and hospitalized.