A Los Angeles man was sentenced Tuesday to 78 years in prison after pleading guilty to stabbing his three sons to death inside the family’s car five years ago.
Luiz Fuentes, 38, received his sentence immediately after entering his plea.
As part of the plea, Fuentes admitted to using a knife to kill his boys, ages 11, 9 and 8, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney.
The three children were found Sept. 9, 2015 in the father’s SUV, which was parked outside a South Los Angeles furniture warehouse. Fuentes was in the front seat with self-inflicted stab wounds.
In the months before the boys were killed, they lived with Fuentes in his SUV, according to a review of nearly 700 pages of case records released to the Los Angeles Times after the slayings.
The records detailed child protection workers’ dealings with Fuentes and portray the financial pressure and grief he faced after the boys’ mother died in 2008.
Over the years, the county had received anonymous calls that accused Fuentes of abusing the boys. The Department of Children and Family Services substantiated one accusation, a 2010 incident in which Fuentes beat his then-5-year-old son with a belt.
“I made a mistake,” he told caseworkers at the time, according to records cited by the Times.
