Boy Testifies His Mother Forbade Children to Leave Burning House

When David Nieves woke in the middle of the night, eyes burning and throat aching from the smoke, he asked his mother if he and his four younger sisters could leave the house.

But Sandi Nieves, now on trial, charged with capital murder in San Fernando Superior Court, told him to remain in the kitchen, the 15-year-old boy testified Wednesday.

The smoke came from a fire Nieves had intentionally set that killed all four of her daughters, authorities say.

“Why didn’t you get out of the house?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman asked.

The teenager replied that he had “believed” in the woman now sitting diagonally across from him in court.

“I did what my mother did, did what she told me to do,” he said.

As the boy testified, he occasionally glanced toward his mother, then quickly averted his eyes. Wednesday was the first time the mother and son have seen each other since the July 1998 fire at their Saugus home.

Sandi Nieves, 36, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder. She also faces charges of attempted murder of David and arson causing great bodily injuries. She faces a possible death penalty.

David Nieves said Wednesday that he heard his sisters cough from the smoke, and one girl asked if she could go to the bathroom to throw up. Their mother said no, to stay where she was and to throw up on the floor, the boy testified.

Prosecutors allege Nieves gathered her children in the kitchen and then started a fire to kill them and commit suicide. Nieves was desperate, angry and vengeful, they argued, toward the men in her life--including an ex-boyfriend who had left her and an ex-husband with whom she was engaged in a custody battle.

Deputy Public Defender Howard Waco contends that Nieves lacked criminal intent and has suggested that David might have been the one who spilled gasoline onto the hallway carpet and started the fire.

When questioned by Waco, the boy said his mother had told him and his sisters they were having a slumber party in the kitchen, a room also used as a den, with a television and VCR. The children watched movies and fell asleep.

He was shaken awake in the middle of the night by his mother, he said, who told him there was smoke in the house.

“She told us to put our faces into the blankets, so we wouldn’t breathe in smoke,” he said. “She told me to stay inside because the smoke could be coming from the outside.”

He then passed out, he said. When he awoke later in the night he saw his sisters lying on the floor and their mother lying next to them, he said.

Waco portrayed Nieves as a doting but strict parent, suggesting her oldest child might have resented her.

Nieves made her children do chores, restricted their phone use and made the family move from Perris to Saugus, the boy said, adding that he had missed his old friends.