A 32-year-old mother who fatally stabbed her three young daughters at their home near Carson in 2014 was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Carol Coronado was convicted of first-degree murder Nov. 30 in a non-jury trial for the May 20, 2014, killings of her daughters, Sophia, 2, Yazmine, 16 months, and Xenia, 2 months, who were stabbed to death and lined up in order of their ages.
Coronado's lawyer said she was suffering from postpartum depression.
"The court does believe that she needs treatment but the treatment will have to be in state prison," Judge Ricardo Ocampo said Monday.
Ocampo sentenced Coronado to three consecutive life terms after hearing pleas for leniency, including from her lawyer, who asked the judge to "do something out of the norm" and "take the unpopular approach and send her to a mental hospital."
"This was a psychotic episode," said Coronado's attorney, Stephen T. Allen, calling the U.S. laws around the issue "archaic" and noting that "other first-world countries have laws" that protect women in cases of infanticide where mental illness is involved.
Allen has said Coronado has no recollection of what happened the day of the slayings.
