Mother of Slain Toddler Arrested

The mother of a 22-month-old Lancaster toddler found dead last week inside his father’s van was arrested Saturday in connection with the killing.

Sylvia Rolon-Torrez, 40, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Los Angeles along with the boy’s father, Anthony Bill Lopez, 35, of Des Moines, who was arrested several days ago.

Each is being held on $1-million bail, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Joe Mileham.

Officials originally believed that that Anthony Lopez kidnapped the boy from Lancaster on Tuesday and later killed him.

But investigators developed information casting doubt on the mother’s story that Lopez picked up his son, Isaac Lopez, for a clothes shopping trip and never returned, officials said.

After interviewing others at Rolon-Torrez’s home in Lancaster and conducting forensic tests on the property, they concluded that the boy died there.

Results of an autopsy may take several weeks, the coroner’s office said.

Authorities on Saturday released little information about what exactly happened to Isaac or what role his mother might have played in the slaying.

Homicide detectives believe Lopez carried the boy’s body to his 1991 Plymouth Voyager in a black duffel bag before driving to a park near the southern San Gabriel Valley city of Industry, about 85 miles away, according to Deputy Bill Spears.

A friend of Lopez in the Industry area alerted sheriff’s deputies late Tuesday night that the father was acting strangely. Lopez at first told the friend he could not see Isaac and then said the boy was dead, according to officials.

Sheriff’s deputies launched a search for both the van and the boy’s mother, who they said had not reported her son missing.

When they found her at home about 1 a.m. Wednesday, she told them she was not worried, even though Lopez had not returned with the boy, Spears said.

The Sheriff’s Department broadcast a bulletin to Southern California law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for Lopez’s blue van. Two patrolling deputies spotted the vehicle at Bassett County Park on Wednesday afternoon.

The deputies found Lopez sitting inside and discovered the child’s body in the duffel bag in the van’s rear cargo area. Lopez was for questioning and arrested about 12 hours later.