Neighbor: “Screams of Sheer Terror Woke Us”

Police say a man hospitalized with stab wounds along with his wife has been arrested in the stabbing deaths of their two children at their Corona home.

A police statement says 39-year-old Amado Esqueda was arrested after being treated for his injuries after a mother's screams of agony shattered early morning quiet Saturday.

The girls, a two-month-old baby and a six-year-old child, were pronounced dead at Corona Regional Medical Center, said Corona police Sgt. Jerry Pawluczenko.

"The dispatcher told the officers who were en route the mom was on the phone, that 'the dad stabbed the kids and stabbed me,'" said veteran news videographer John Casper of CasperNews Service. "She was screaming her babies are dead."

The violence was reported at 6:48 a.m. Saturday when police received a 911 call from a home in or near the 700 block of Via Paraiso Circle in Corona, according to Pawluczenko.

Neighbor Diana Valencia awoke to screaming, and another neighbor heard death cries in Spanish of "Muerte, muerte!" the Press-Enterprise reported. That translates as "Dead, dead!"

"It was like frightened yelling in horror," Valencia told a reporter for the Riverside newspaper.

Screaming also awakened Johanna Lawson, 64, who lives close to the home where the stabbings occurred, the Press-Enterprise reported.

"Her screams of sheer terror woke us up," the newspaper quoted Lawson. "Then I flung open the door and heard her yell, 'muerte, muerte, muerte,' -- dead, dead, dead. I knew something horrific was going on."

Casper said he was headed towards the reported crime scene when he spotted an ambulance crew unloading a child patient and performing CPR on the child at Corona Regional Medical Center on South Main Street.

At the home on Via Paraiso, Casper said he witnessed an adult being loaded into an ambulance, and a police officer boarding the ambulance.

Homicide detectives were at the crime scene, Pawluczenko said.

Both girls were found inside the home. Esqueda and the woman with stab wounds were listed in serious condition, Pawluczenko said.

The Riverside County coroner confirmed there were two deceased victims.

Some people in the Via Paraiso neighborhood knew little about the family, the Press-Enterprise reported. Many residents have moved in and out of the neighborhood in the ongoing housing crisis.

Lawson told the Press-Enterprise a family had been living the past four years in the home where the girls were fatally injured.

The family who lived there always had get-togethers and celebrations, Lawson said. A boy and a girl at the home often came down a slope to retrieve a soccer ball.

"It's so terrifying. She was so hysterical," Lawson told the Press-Enterprise. "This neighborhood is as peaceful as could be. They were always laughing and such a happy family."

Ray Schmitz didn't know the family as well as Lawson, but he was shaken by what happened.

"Something real bad went on inside that house and when there are children involved it strikes home for everybody," Schmitz told the Press- Enterprise. "You don't want to wake up to this on a Saturday morning or even worse, right before Mother's Day."