Friend Says Caro Was Good Mother

A close friend of the Caro family told jurors that Socorro Caro appeared to be a happy and loving mother in the days before the shooting that took the lives of three of her four young sons.

“I admired Socorro Caro because she always was the mother I wished I could have been,” said Bette Kochsiek, whose husband worked in the same medical building as Dr. Xavier Caro and his wife.

The couples met in 1984 and became close friends, often going to dinner and vacationing together. And through the years, Kochsiek said, she grew very fond of Socorro Caro. She also admired her “beautiful clothes and beautiful house.”

“To you, she seemed to be living the perfect life,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Cheryl Temple asked Kochsiek under cross-examination. “Do you recall saying that?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Kochsiek said.

But Kochsiek acknowledged that she did not know that the woman she had grown so close to had once allegedly pulled a gun on Xavier Caro and had reportedly threatened to commit suicide in the days before the shootings.

“I had not heard of that,” Kochsiek said.

Socorro Caro, 44, is accused of shooting the three boys as they slept in the family’s Santa Rosa Valley home before turning the gun on herself in an apparent suicide attempt. Christopher, 5, Michael, 8, and Joey, 11, died in the Nov. 22, 1999, shootings. A fourth son, 13-month-old Gabriel, was unharmed.

Caro has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Defense attorneys contend that her husband, who had been considering a divorce, is framing his wife. Authorities have not charged Xavier Caro with any crime or named him as a suspect.

Assistant Public Defender Jean Farley also called to the stand Caro employees, who echoed Kochsiek’s assessment of Caro as a good mother who always showed concern and attention to her children.

“Was she a good and loving mother on [Nov. 22, 1999]?” Farley asked housekeeper Maria Hernandez.

“I didn’t pay much attention because she’s always like that,” said Hernandez, who spoke through a Spanish interpreter.

In other developments, retired Ventura County Chief Medical Examiner Warren Lovell resumed testimony that shed doubt on whether Caro’s head wound was self-inflicted.

On Tuesday, Lovell testified that the location of the wound made it “highly unlikely” that she shot herself. But on Wednesday, the doctor stopped short of ruling out a suicide attempt. He said he “couldn’t say either way,” with certainty.

If convicted, Caro could face the death penalty. Testimony in the case continues today.