Mother Convicted in Girls’ Deaths

After deliberating one day, a San Fernando jury found Sandi Nieves guilty of first-degree murder for killing her four daughters.

Because the jury also found special circumstances of arson, lying in wait and multiple murders, Nieves could face the death penalty.

“We’re very grateful that the jury agreed with us and held the defendant responsible for what she had done,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Barshop.

Standing in the courtroom as the verdict was read, the 36-year-old Saugus woman hunched over and covered her face with a sheet of paper.

Prosecutors contended that Nieves tried to commit suicide and kill her five children out of financial desperation and anger at the men in her life, who she believed had failed her. In the weeks before she set the fatal fire in her home, a boyfriend left her and she was engaged in a child support battle with an ex-husband.

On the night of June 30, 1998, Nieves told her children to sleep in the kitchen area of their rented house, according to testimony. Sometime after midnight, as they slept, she poured gasoline on the hallway carpet and started a fire.

Her four daughters, Kristl and Jaqlene Folden, 5 and 7, and Rashel and Nikolet Folden-Nieves, 11 and 12, died of smoke inhalation. Her son, David Nieves, who was 14, survived. He testified against his mother.

Deputy Public Defender Howard Waco had argued that Nieves should be acquitted because there was insufficient evidence that she started the blaze, and that even if she had she should not be held responsible because she was “legally unconscious” at the time.

In the three-month trial’s most dramatic day, Nieves took the stand and said that she had a “flashback” of holding a lighter in her hand and seeing a blaze. But she also said she had no knowledge of what happened. She testified that she ingested a combination of Zoloft, a prescription drug, and alcohol on the day of the fire.

Expert witnesses for the defense tried to show that Nieves was in a semiconscious or sleepwalking state. Prosecution experts disagreed.

In addition to four counts of first-degree murder, Nieves was found guilty of attempted murder of her son and of arson causing great bodily injuries.

Waco attributed the trial’s outcome to rulings by Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt restricting his case. During the trial, Waco filed a motion to remove Wiatt, alleging that the judge was biased. Wiatt has denied Waco’s allegations.

Given what the jurors were allowed to hear, Waco said, “the verdict, while disappointing, was not a total shock.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman said that prosecutors “had an overwhelming amount of evidence.” It included what prosecutors called “suicide letters” that Nieves mailed to her ex-boyfriend and an ex-husband hours before the fire.

A canister partly filled with gasoline--and bearing Nieves’ fingerprints--was found in the house.

Her son testified that during the fire, he and his sisters awoke surrounded by smoke and fumes but that their mother told them to stay where they were and just put their faces into their blankets.

“The four girls had every chance and hope taken away by the one person they trusted the most: their own mother,” said their stepmother, Charlotte Nieves.

Attending court was David Folden, the father of two of the victims, and Fernando Nieves, the father of the other two.

“It’s been very tough to accept that Nikolet, Rashel, Kristl and Jaqlene are gone,” said Charlotte Nieves. “We miss them every day.”

Jurors will return Tuesday to determine whether Nieves should be given the death penalty.

“It’s been a very long road, especially for the family,” Silverman said. “They waited two years to hear those words: guilty.”