WOODLAND — Speaking softly and often through tears, the sister of a Davis murder suspect recalled Wednesday the events leading up to the discovery of her 5-year-old niece’s body in the trunk of her mother’s car.
Priscilla Talamantes, the younger sister of defendant Aquelin Talamantes, was at her apartment in Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood on Sept. 26, 2013, when another sister called to inform her that Aquelin’s daughter, Tatiana Garcia, had gone missing from the family’s South Davis home.
While one relative contacted the police, Priscilla Talamantes phoned Aquelin, who by that point was making the drive from Davis to Sacramento with her 4-year-old son.
Asked whether Tatiana was with her, Aquelin Talamantes replied, “No, I can’t find her — help me find Tatiana, Priscilla,” the witness recalled emotionally in Yolo Superior Court. Priscilla Talamantes said she urged her sister to come to her apartment, but Aquelin seemed resistant.
“Is there going to be police there? They’re trying to get me,” Aquelin Talamantes said “over and over again,” according to her sister. But she arrived at the Sacramento apartment complex a short time later, pausing to pat the car trunk as she emerged from the vehicle.
Already suspecting Tatiana might be concealed there, “that’s when it confirmed my intuition,” Priscilla Talamantes said. With officers on the way, Priscilla took steps to prevent her sister from leaving, but also avoided letting her into her apartment.
“I didn’t want to be in a confined area with her … because of the way she looked,” she said, recalling her sister’s vacant look and other odd mannerisms. “She looked scary to me.”
Aquelin Talamantes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murder and child assault charges in connection with her daughter’s drowning death, which authorities say occurred in the bathtub of the Glide Drive house Talamantes and her children shared with sister Elisa Torres.
The 29-year-old defendant is believed to have wrapped Tatiana’s body in a blanket and trash bag before concealing it in the trunk of her car.
Defense attorney Sally Fredericksen claimed in opening statements this week that her client’s history of mental illness precludes her from having the necessary mind-set to commit first-degree murder. Prosecutor Ryan Couzens, meanwhile, contends that Talamantes acted out of resentment for her children and has feigned symptoms of a mental breakdown.
Testifying much of the trial’s second day, Priscilla Talamantes recalled not only the events of Sept. 26 but also the family’s troubled history, including their mother’s violent 1995 murder by her boyfriend that put four of the seven Talamantes children in the care of Torres, the eldest sibling.
She said Aquelin later struggled to take care of her own son and daughter, neglecting to regularly bathe them and allowing them to subsist on junk food. Oftentimes, she’d call on her siblings to help care for the kids.
“She would say it was hard not to have a mom, to show her how to be a mom,” Priscilla Talamantes said. “She didn’t know what to do. … I feel like she was overwhelmed.”
Despite being pregnant with her own child, Priscilla Talamantes was in the process of assuming temporary custody of Aquelin’s son Michael out of concern for the children’s well-being. Those fears subsided, however, when Aquelin and her kids moved into Torres’ South Davis home last August.
Just before the move, however, Aquelin began demonstrating behavior that raised questions about her mental health, her sister recalled.
“I noticed little things here and there,” Priscilla Talamantes said, citing one bizarre phone call during which Aquelin claimed she was unable to get money from an ATM, and that police were “watching me — everyone’s looking at me.”
Asked by prosecutor Couzens whether she considered her sister to be “truly mentally ill” or simply manipulative, Priscilla Talamantes answered, “I would say both.”
“It wasn’t like she was this manipulative mastermind, but she did manipulative things,” she added, such as telling her sister before the discovery of Tatiana’s body, “She’s missing, Priscilla — don’t you care? You’re her aunt.”
“I didn’t know what to make of it,” Priscilla Talamantes said.
The trial resumed this morning in Judge Stephen Mock’s courtroom.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene