De Queen, Ark. – A mother accused of smothering her three young children left notes that officials say could help determine what led to the killings, and her priest said Sunday she had expressed “tremendous remorse.”
Paula Eleazar Mendez, 43, was in a county jail Sunday after being treated at a hospital for swallowing a toxic substance.
She had collapsed as officers arrived at her home Saturday morning in response to a telephone call from the children’s father in New York. Inside the home, the officers found the bodies of the children, ages 6 to 8, lying side-by-side on a bed, said Chris Brackett, an investigator with the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office.
“I do not believe there is any dispute as to who killed these three children, and therefore who will be charged,” prosecutor Tom Cooper said.
The notes found inside the house may help officials understand what led to the killings, De Queen Police Chief Rich ard McKinley said, though he declined to disclose their contents.
A priest who visited Mendez in a hospital Saturday night described a woman experiencing profound sorrow.
“She has tremendous remorse. She is deeply sorry,” the Rev. Salvador Marquez-Munoz said Sunday before entering St. Barbara Catholic Church for Mass. “She asked for our prayers and forgiveness because she is realizing how much she has hurt the community, as well.”
He identified the children as 8-year-old Elvis and 6-year-old twins Samanta and Samuel.
Autopsies were planned on the children’s bodies to determine if they had been poisoned or smothered, as their mother told police, Cooper said.
Cooper said an emergency- room doctor told him Mendez had not ingested enough of the toxic substance to kill herself. Her arraignment is set for today.
The priest said Mendez, who moved to the United States from Mexico 10 years ago, had lived in New York until last summer, when she moved to De Queen because she wanted her children to live in a safer environment.
