Slain Children’s Kin Recount Their Anguish

The two families have sat silently in court since summer, listening to testimony about the man who rammed his car into a Costa Mesa day-care center and killed their children.

On Thursday, it was their turn to speak. The mother of slain 3-year-old Brandon Wiener described how her husband spends hours sitting alone in his son’s room, isolated from the rest of the family. Brandon’s 14-year-old brother, Justin, told the court how he no longer looks forward to holidays, how everything in the house reminds him of Brandon.

And the father of Sierra Soto, a 4-year-old who was also killed, said the pain is so intense that some days he looks forward to dying. “You want to wake up and say . . . ‘It’s just a horrible nightmare,’ ” Eric Soto said.

The testimony came at the start of the penalty phase in the trial of Steven Allen Abrams. Jurors will decide whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole for the 1999 attack. Abrams was convicted of first-degree murder in August.

Prosecutors asked family members to testify so jurors could hear about their suffering. The families had not spoken publicly, under instructions from the district attorney’s office.

Defense lawyer Leonard Gumlia said Abrams was insane at the time and didn’t mean to kill the children, so should have his life spared. The jury found Monday that the defendant was sane at the time of the crime.

Throughout Thursday’s proceedings, Abrams, 39, sat slumped to one side in his chair, looking away from the witness stand.

Sierra’s mother, Cindy Soto, recoiled in horror when she realized she would have to walk past Abrams to testify. As she approached him, she stopped, her body shaking, before she regained her composure.

Soto said she can no longer look forward to visiting amusement parks, pumpkin patches and other places with her daughter. Holidays hold no meaning for her. A dance instructor, she said she has considered closing her Newport Beach studio because it reminds her too much of Sierra, who was the studio’s mascot.

“Sierra was my whole life,” Soto said. “She was my only child. She was part of everything I did.”

Eric Soto said he used to run along the shoreline in Laguna Beach with his daughter, helping her find seashells and crabs. But after her death, he said, he fell into a deep depression the one time he returned to the shore.

He said he often imagines his daughter’s thoughts when she died: Was she “wondering why I hadn’t protected her?” he said.

The Wiener family has also struggled to endure its grief.

Justin misses wrestling with his little brother. Brandon always clung to his leg, hugging and begging him to play, Justin said. “Our family event stuff . . . it’s not the same because it doesn’t feel like the whole family’s there,” he said.

His mother, Pamela Wiener, told jurors she longs for “everything about her son,” especially how he used to jump into her arms and call out to her: “Mommy, Mommy.”

“It’s a struggle every day just to get up in the morning, but I have to,” said Wiener. “It’s so hard. My baby’s not here.”

She said her husband, Aaron, often couldn’t work, instead spending his time alone in his son’s room.

Bucky Wiener, Aaron’s brother, described his nephew as an intensely curious, intelligent and fun-loving child. Aaron’s long depression, he said, probably led to his losing his job. He said Aaron, who did not testify, is a private man who has struggled deeply.

“He’s strong, but how strong can you be when something like that happens?” Wiener said.