D.A. to Seek Death Penalty in Slayings of Caro Brothers

Socorro “Cora” Caro could face the death penalty if she is convicted of murder in the slayings of her three oldest sons, the Ventura County district attorney’s office announced Thursday.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury declined to say why he decided to seek the death penalty, saying it would be inappropriate to discuss the case because Caro has not yet been tried.

Caro, 43, is charged with fatally shooting her three sons--11-year-old Xavier, 7-year-old Michael and 5-year-old Christopher--as they slept in the family’s Santa Rosa Valley home in November 1999. A fourth child, a toddler, was not hurt.

Bradbury reviewed the case and Caro’s psychiatric reports before making his decision. His staff also met with Caro’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Jean Farley.

Farley said she was surprised and disappointed by the decision, which she told Caro about in jail Thursday afternoon.

Investigators said Dr. Xavier Caro returned home from his Northridge medical office to find three of his sons dead and his wife suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Socorro Caro, who was a stay-at-home mother, faces three murder counts and a special allegation that she committed multiple murders.

She has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. She is being held on $500,000 bail, and her trial is set to begin March 5.

If jurors find Caro guilty of murder, they will then decide on her sanity at the time of the crime. If they determine she was sane, the jurors will decide whether to sentence her to death. If they determine she was insane, she will be sent to a criminal mental institution.

During a hearing last summer, Farley said Caro doesn’t remember the night her sons were killed and she was suffering from acute depression. Caro’s mental condition will be a significant issue in the trial, Farley said.

Authorities have not suggested a motive for the crime, but during a preliminary hearing, Caro’s mother testified that her daughter had been a victim of domestic abuse.

The last time the Ventura County district attorney’s office sought the death penalty for a woman was in the case of Diana Haun, who was convicted of murdering 35-year-old Sherri Dally, her lover’s wife, in 1996.

A jury convicted her, along with the victim’s husband Michael Dally, of kidnapping, stabbing and beating Dally before dumping her body in a ravine. But the jury rejected the death penalty and instead sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Dally also received a life sentence.

Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said juries are usually less inclined to sentence women to death. But in cases where mothers are charged with murdering their own children, Levenson said, it’s difficult to garner sympathy from jurors.

In such cases, the jurors want to figure out why a woman would kill her children. If the mental or emotional problems were so great to provoke her to do something so horrible, Levenson said, the defendant may be saved from the death penalty.

“Jurors tend to think that you have to be crazy to kill your kids,” she added. “For some jurors, that may make a difference. But for other jurors, the crime is so heinous that it may not.”