WOODLAND — The Davis woman accused of drowning her 5-year-old daughter claimed she heard “bad voices” and was being watched in the weeks leading up to the little girl’s death, according to testimony offered Friday in Yolo Superior Court.
Aquelin Talamantes suffered from multiple mental-health disorders and struggled to take care of her two young children, though she never threatened to harm them, Sacramento police Detective Scott MacLafferty testified. He also said Talamantes was preparing to transfer guardianship of her 4-year-old son to one of her sisters when the body of Tatiana Garcia was found in the trunk of her mother’s car last fall.
“Stupid kids — I can’t take care of them. I don’t want them,” MacLafferty said, quoting Talamantes’ alleged statement to her sister, Elisa Torres, in whose Glide Drive home Tatiana is believed to have drowned.
Friday’s hearing concluded with Judge David Reed ordering Talamantes to stand trial on charges of murder and assault on a child causing death, saying there was sufficient evidence “to form a strong suspicion … that the defendant committed those violations.”
Talamantes, her previously long hair now cut to just below her ears, is scheduled to return to court Jan. 24 for arraignment.
She has been in custody since Sept. 26, 2013, when police responding to a welfare check in Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood found Tatiana’s body, wrapped in a thick blanket inside a black plastic garbage bag, in the trunk of Talamantes’ Honda Accord.
Nearly four months later, the memories were still overwhelming for Sacramento police Officer Ethan Zeek, the first officer to respond to the scene that day.
“I saw a small Hispanic child. She had a grayish tint to her,” said Zeek, who broke down on the witness stand Friday while describing the girl’s purple pajamas. “Sorry — I have a daughter the same age.”
Tatiana’s hair was still damp, and Zeek recalled feeling a glimmer of hope when he saw a bubble escape from the whitish foam that had formed on the girl’s mouth.
“It must have been oxygen escaping from her lungs,” Zeek said. “I thought for a moment that she was still alive.”
The patrol officer said he began performing chest compressions on the girl’s tiny body, and that two passersby joined him in the lifesaving efforts, but Tatiana was later pronounced dead at a Sacramento hospital.
Sacramento police Detective Mark Johnson, who observed the girl’s autopsy, said Tatiana’s body showed slight bruising around her lower legs and ankles, and she had petechial hemorrhaging — a sign of asphyxiation — around her cheeks and eyelids.
Family members later told police that Talamantes — who had recently been hospitalized after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, psychosis and possible bipolar disorder — had repeatedly demonstrated odd behavior, a pattern they said may have been triggered by her own mother’s murder by a boyfriend back in 1995.
“She would gaze off and show paranoia,” MacLafferty said. “She would say things like, ‘They’re looking at me. Why are they looking at me?’ “
On the morning of Tatiana’s death, Talamantes made contact with a Davis police officer who had stopped Torres for a traffic infraction outside the Glide Drive home. A conversation ensued over whether Talamantes was able to take care of her daughter, but police who conducted a welfare check at the house cleared the scene after finding no signs of abuse or neglect.
MacLafferty said Torres recalled her sister drawing a bath around the time of the officers’ visit.
Torres left the house at about 9:30 a.m. to run errands in Vacaville, MacLafferty said. As she headed back to Davis, she texted Talamantes, who was scheduled to go look at a trailer to live in with her children.
“What? What are you talking about?” was Talamantes’ reply, MacLafferty said. Concerned, Torres rushed home, where she found Talamantes’ green Honda backed up to the house at an odd angle, with Talamantes and her pale-looking son near the front door.
Talamantes told Torres she was headed to their sister Priscilla’s apartment in Sacramento. When Torres asked where Tatiana was, Talamantes said, “I don’t know. I can’t find her,” MacLafferty said.
Torres then searched the house for her missing niece, the detective said. When she returned to the front door, Talamantes, her son and the Honda were gone.
A flurry of phone calls and text messages among relatives followed, during which Talamantes repeatedly expressed confusion about her daughter’s whereabouts, MacLafferty said. When she arrived at the Pocket-area apartment complex, she reportedly patted the car’s trunk but refused to hand relatives her keys or let them near the vehicle.
During a subsequent struggle between Talamantes and Zeek over a pepper-spray key chain, two relatives were able to grab the keys and rush to the car, where they tore open the trash bag and made the horrific discovery, according to testimony.
That night, during a phone call with Torres, “Ms. Talamantes stated that she was hearing voices — she was hearing bad voices,” said Davis police Lt. Glenn Glasgow, whose agency joined the homicide investigation after investigators determined Tatiana’s death likely occurred in the Glide Drive home.
Asked what had happened to the girl, Talamantes replied, “I don’t know. I need help. I need to be in a hospital,” Glasgow testified.
Talamantes would later make an alleged reference to a drowning at the Yolo County Jail, where according to MacLafferty she asked a correctional officer about the location of her daughter’s body.
“My daughter drowned and I need to know where the body is to plan the funeral and bury her,” Talamantes reportedly said. Johnson, meanwhile, said Talamantes also gave a clue about her daughter’s apparent fate while alone in an interview room at the Sacramento police station.
“She said, ‘Tatiana, let’s take a bath,’ ” Johnson said, quoting the recorded statement. “She started crying, and said ‘bath’ again.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene