Trial Begins for Mother in Deaths of 4 Daughters

The fire had died down, but it was too late for the four girls curled up in blankets in sleeping bags in the family kitchen.

In the living room sat their mother, emotionless, investigators said, even when told that her daughters were dead. She and her teenage son, who also was in their Saugus house at the time, later were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.

Nearly two years after the family tragedy, the dead girls’ mother, Sandi Nieves, is on trial for her life in San Fernando Superior Court.

Nieves, 36, is charged with four counts of capital murder, attempted murder of her son, and arson causing great bodily injury. She faces a possible death penalty if convicted.

Jury selection continues this week in the courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt.

Lawyers for both sides will paint starkly contrasting pictures of the woman. A school principal once described her as a good parent, but others say she is a modern-day Medea, the villainous mother-character of the eponymous Greek tragedy who killed her children out of rage against their father.

When Nieves’ daughters died in 1998, she was locked in a bitter custody dispute with an ex-husband, according to authorities.

Prosecutors contend that Nieves tried to commit suicide and take her children with her.

According to Deputy Dist. Attys. Kenneth Barshop and Beth Silverman, Nieves told her girls they were having a slumber party in the kitchen, and then started a fire in an adjoining garage. Though authorities initially believed that the girls had been gassed because the oven door was open, later tests showed that they died of smoke inhalation.

“As far as we’re concerned, she is the one who set fire to the house,” Silverman said. “There is strong evidence that links her.”

To show motive, prosecutors said they plan to introduce several letters written by Nieves, at least one of which indicates she wanted to commit suicide.

But Deputy Public Defender Howard Waco believes that questions remain as to whether Nieves was really the person responsible for the deaths of Kristl, 5, and Jaqlene Folden, 7, and Rashel and Nikolet Folden-Nieves, 11 and 12, respectively.

“There is no smoking gun in this case,” Waco said. “There is insufficient evidence that she did it.”

Key issues will be Nieves’ state of mind, and circumstances surrounding the homicide investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“Things will be brought out that will question the attitude and conduct of the police in putting together their case against my client,” Waco said. Jurors may see videotapes of a reality-based television police show that covered this case.

Footage of the “A & E Detectives” program shows investigators discussing delaying release of evidence helpful to Nieves’ defense and asking for crime analysis information that would only be helpful to prosecutors, Waco said. “If this is an indication [of questionable police conduct], what will they do without the camera playing?” Waco said.

Waco said Nieves was highly distraught at the time over an abortion, which conflicted with her Mormon values and religious beliefs, and had been ingesting a cocktail of antidepressant medication and diet pills.

A key witness during the trial will likely be David Nieves, the defendant’s son who was 14 at the time.

Waco considers him a “wild card” witness because he will question the teenager for the first time ever during the trial.

The teenager did not testify at preliminary hearings and refused to cooperate with his mother’s defense before trial, according to attorneys on both sides.

“The scariest part is that he’s been in the total control of the prosecution and his natural father,” Waco said.

But prosecutors said it is the right of every witness to decide with whom to cooperate before trial. “David himself has chosen not to speak to the defendant’s lawyer,” Silverman said.

As a subtext to the courtroom battle, Waco alleges that the capital case against Nieves, whom he described as “basically a good person” with no criminal record, is politically motivated.

Waco contends that prosecutors’ pursuit of the death penalty for Nieves is driven by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s desire to appear tough on crime during his reelection campaign--an accusation prosecutor Barshop called “ludicrous.”

“The woman is charged with killing four innocent children,” Barshop said.

“You’re talking about a horrible crime,” Silverman said, adding that the charges involve multiple murders, lying in wait and arson, each of which alone makes Nieves eligible for the death penalty.

“It’s hard to find a crime much worse than a mother who would choose to kill her children,” Silverman said.