Fight Between Caros Recalled

Hours before Socorro Caro’s three young boys were shot to death in their beds in 1999, an argument in the family’s Santa Rosa Valley home in Ventura County took a violent turn, according to testimony Wednesday at Caro’s murder trial.

Caro is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her sons, ages 5, 8 and 11. A fourth boy, then 13 months old, was not harmed.

Prosecutors say Caro killed the boys to punish her husband, Dr. Xavier Caro, for cutting off money she had been giving her parents and for threatening to divorce her.

Socorro Caro has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Defense attorneys contend that Xavier Caro framed his wife in the children’s deaths and in an apparent suicide attempt that followed the killings.

Halting and tearful, Socorro Caro’s mother, Juanita Leon, testified Wednesday that she stayed at the family’s five-bedroom home most of the week and “took care of the boys day and night.”

On Nov. 22, 1999, she said she was helping the Caros pack for a customary Thanksgiving trip to a family property near Modesto.

From her bedroom, she testified, she heard her daughter and son-in-law quarreling upstairs.

“It was loud and he was very upset,” Leon said, whispering many of her answers in court.

Leon said she went upstairs and saw them fighting, with her daughter lying on the floor. When she saw Xavier Caro kicking his wife’s legs as she lay on the master bedroom floor, Leon said she confronted him.

“I told him to shut his mouth,” Leon said. “I told him to get the hell out of the house, that my little boys were listening to him.”

In testimony last week, Xavier Caro denied kicking his wife before he left for his office in Northridge to cool down. He said she had grabbed him from behind and slid onto the floor while grasping his ankles to keep him from leaving the house.

After the incident, Leon testified, she decided to go home to Granada Hills. But first, she said, she tried to soothe 11-year-old Joey, who was awake in bed.

“I ran to tell my Joey to not be scared, that grandma was leaving but was going to get rid of your daddy,” Leon said.

Earlier in her testimony, Leon said she had seen Xavier Caro push Joey that evening, an assertion that prosecutor Jim Ellison maintained was never made to investigators nor prosecutors in pretrial interviews.

Questioning her credibility, Ellison suggested a number of inconsistencies between Leon’s testimony and her accounts to investigators shortly after the crime.

“Sir, I’ve just gone through an awful lot,” she told him, breaking down in tears. “I don’t remember what I said then.”

Ellison focused on a visit by Leon to her daughter’s hospital room after the shootings, where she lay recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound to the brain that prosecutors allege was self-inflicted.

“Do you recall her saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry for what’s happened to my babies?’ ” he asked, citing an investigator’s report.

“I don’t recall,” Leon replied.

“Did you ask her, ‘Why did you do it?’ ” Ellison said.

“I don’t remember,” she replied.

“Did you start reciting a prayer known as the act of contrition over her?” Ellison asked.

“I said many prayers over her,” Leon replied.