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SALT LAKE CITY — Charges were filed Friday against a mother who sparked an Amber Alert after police say she ran off with her children and attempted to hide from law enforcement after a court awarded temporary custody of the children to the state.
Criminal charges were also filed Friday against the children's grandmother.
Yaneli Morales Murillo, 22, and Maria Murillo Alvarez, 38, both of Salt Lake City, are each charged in 3rd District Court with two counts of child kidnapping, a first-degree felony; obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; and two counts of child abuse, a class A misdemeanor.
On April 20, the Division of Child and Family Services was awarded temporary custody of two of Yaneli Murillo's children, a 2-month-old and a 2-year-old, during a court hearing. But when state workers went to Murillo's residence later that day to take custody of the children, they could not be found, according to charging documents.
DCFS workers contacted Murillo and her mother, Alvarez, by phone "and they refused to turn over the children and hung up on DCFS," the charges state. She told them "that there was no way I was going to turn over my kids to them."
A DCFS caseworker then received a text from Murillo a short time later stating, "Because of what they did to me, I'm here, that was the help they gave me, because the children didn't let me, and I did it wrong so that you made me kill the children, and I failed them," according to the charges.
South Salt Lake police then learned that two other children, ages 9 and 11, were removed from school by the mother and grandmother.
Police went to Murillo's apartment and after no one answered the door, entered the apartment due to children possibly being in danger, the charges state. Detectives noted that the apartment "was in disarray and in a deplorable state.
"There (was) feces on the floor, old rotting food on the kitchen table and counters, multiple stains were smeared on the floor of an unknown origin, a fish tank was sitting on a chair in the kitchen filled more than halfway with dirty gray water, garbage bags filled with trash were strewn about the living room, mattresses were covered in stains and cockroaches were crawling on the floor and walls," the charges allege.
Police issued an Amber Alert for the missing children.
Murillo, Alvarez and the children were found later that day in West Valley City. The children were not harmed.
When questioned by police, Murillo admitted to smoking methamphetamine in her apartment right after the court hearing, according to the charges, then "blamed the deplorable condition of the apartment on her 2-year-old daughter." She allegedly said after checking her other two children out of school, they went to a friend's house in West Valley City to hide when the Amber Alert was issued.
Murillo was also charged in August with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault, third-degree felonies; threatening to use a weapon during a fight, a class A misdemeanor; and three counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, a class B misdemeanor.
In that case, Murillo's mother claimed she threatened her with a gun, according to charging documents.
A witness told police that Yaneli Murillo was told "Maria snitched," so Yaneli planned to "scare Maria" by walking into an apartment with a gun in her hand, shutting the door and telling everyone inside that they weren't leaving, the charges state. Police later recovered the gun, which turned out to be a pellet gun.
Alvarez is also being held on a detainer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for being previously deported and illegally reentering the United States, according to court records.
