Indio teen testifies against mother in sickening murder case

A teenage girl whose mother is charged in the death of her3-year-old sister testified today that her mother would pepper-spray thetoddler and poke her with hot needles as punishment.

Yolanda Guadalupe Pena, 43, faces charges of murder, torture andassaulting a child causing great bodily injury and five counts of inflictinginjury on a child. She was arrested June 30, 2009, in her daughter’s death.

Delilah Urrutia suffered head trauma, second-degree burns on her face,neck, chest, back and arms, and had other signs of physical abuse, according topolice and prosecutors.

The toddler was dead when authorities arrived at her home in the 44000 blockof Vista Dunes Lane in La Quinta about 10:15 p.m. on June 25, 2009, Riverside County sheriff’s deputies said.

One of Pena’s two older daughters testified that her mother peppersprayed Delilah if she did not eat what was put before her.

“How would Delilah react when she got pepper sprayed?” asked DeputyDistrict Attorney Lisa DiMaria.

“She would scream a lot,” the 16-year-old said.

On other occasions, the girl said, her mother would also heat needles onthe stove and poke Delilah with them to punish her.

“How did Delilah react to this?” DiMaria asked.

“She would scream,” the girl said.

She testified that she was staying with her mother’s best friend the dayDelilah died.

“I couldn’t believe it. I started crying,” she said when her mother’sfriend told her the news.

She testified that she didn’t initially tell a police detective or achild abuse specialist about her mother’s alleged abuse because she was scaredof her mother.

She said her mother told her not to say anything to authorities. Later,she said, “I talked to my (older) brother, and he said I should tell thetruth.”

In her opening statement on Monday, DiMaria said Pena sent Delilah tolive with a relative of her best friend when she about 2, then took her backseveral months later.

Pena allegedly physically abused Delilah and one of her two otherdaughters. Pena allegedly told the daughter who hadn’t been abused that shewould be punished, too, unless she reported her sisters’ misdeeds to her, theprosecutor said.

DiMaria said the Delilah and an older daughter would sometimes sit inthe bathtub while hot and cold water were poured over them. Other times,Delilah was tied up in a plastic bin and put in a closet, with her mouth ducttaped, DiMaria said.

The day Delilah died, one of the older daughters — who was about 11 –was home with the girl, the prosecutor said.

DiMaria said the older daughter told their mother, who was at work, thatDelilah was misbehaving.

“So the defendant ordered (her daughter) to get a cup of water and heatit in the microwave … and pour it on her sister,” DiMaria told jurors inher opening statement. “And she did that all day.”

When Pena got home, she saw Delilah looking at her older sister, whichwasn’t allowed, “so the defendant started hitting Delilah in the head, hard.(The older daughter) says she did it more than 20 times, and that’s supportedby the massive brain bleed suffered by this little girl,” DiMaria alleged.

Pena left to go to her best friend’s house, after tying the toddlers’wrists and ankles, putting a sock in her mouth and a stocking over her head,DiMaria said. She was left in a plastic bin.

Later that night, once Pena and the older daughter came home, Penauntied Delilah and told the older girl to check her pulse. She didn’t feel oneand called her mother’s best friend, then 911.

“The defendant also told (her daughter): `Do not tell police whathappened. Tell them she poured water on herself and that she hits herself,”‘DiMaria said.

The girl, now 15, testified on Tuesday that her mother hit Delilahdaily, using objects like a tree branch, the heel of a high-heeled shoe, a cordfrom the television and a plastic hanger. Her mother sometimes kept Delilahtied up in the bathtub all day, she said.

Pena’s attorney, Thomas Cavanaugh, told jurors his client was a “veryconscientious, hardworking single parent” who struggled to support her family.Pena was a housekeeper at Eisenhower Medical Center.

He said Pena was a “very fastidious woman” whose discipline of herchildren “warped into abuse.” She disciplined them when they didn’t get goodgrades or did something wrong.

“This is a case of a struggling mother who crossed the line and becameabusive, but with those goals in mind,” Cavanaugh said.

Delilah, he said, was a “troubled child” who struggled in the strictenvironment and acted out. He said Pena was very upset and emotional when herdaughter died.

“Despite the evidence of abuse … Ms. Pena did not intend or cause thedeath of her child on the day in question,” Cavanaugh said.

Pena was being held in lieu of $1 million bail.