The murder trial began Monday of a Carson mother accused of stabbing her three young daughters to death.
Carol Ann Coronado appeared stoic in the Compton Superior Court. Her lawyer said that's because she's been on antipsychotic medication, and she did shed a few tears as deputies described the horrible scene they discovered in her bedroom in May of last year.
The bodies of her three daughters — 2-year-old Sophia, 1-year-old Yazmine and 3-month-old Xenia — were lying on the bed with Coronado, who had also stabbed herself.
Coronado's family members and husband were in court to support her.
"Real bad just to see everything. It hurts, you know?" said Coronado's brother-in-law, Fernando Vallejo.
Vallejo says he's supporting Coronado's husband, who continues to support his wife.
When one deputy saw her on the day of the killings, he said "she just had a blank stare on her face."
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Another deputy said, "I don't know if she knew we were there or not."
Her lawyer says that supports their argument that Coronado was suffering from postpartum depression.
"They saw her in a state of confusion and that confusion is very important for major depressive disorder postpartum psychosis," attorney Steve Allen said. "The blank stare, everything that shows she's just not all there."
Coronado has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. But the prosecutor had investigators describe the knives they found, including three laid out on a table. She's accusing Coronado of planning the murders.
Her family insists Coronado was a good and loving mother.
"I don't see her hurting anybody you know I don't know what went through her mind or what caused it I never seen her like that," brother-in-law Vallejo said.
Coronado's mother testified that two weeks before the killings, her daughter said her husband told her he was going to divorce her. The prosecution alleges Coronado murdered her children to get back at him.
The guilt phase of the trial is expected to last until Wednesday. Then comes the sanity phase, where lawyers will argue if Coronado knew what she was doing.
She is not expected to testify and the prosecution is not pursuing the death penalty.
