Mother, son arrested after 3 children found dead in Los Angeles home

Police said the woman admitted to killing her children. Photo / 123RF

The mother of three children found dead at a Los Angeles home over the weekend has been arrested along with a teenager, police said Monday.

Officers responded to a call reporting an assault at the home in the San Fernando Valley Sunday morning and found three unresponsive children, said Officer Lizeth Lomeli, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson.

Paramedics pronounced the children dead and police in a statement said they ranged in age from 8 to 12.

Police did not disclose information about how investigators believe the children were killed. The victims were two boys and a girl, Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner said in an email.

Police identified the children's mother as Angela Flores, 38. A 16-year-old was also detained and while the teen's identity and relationship to the family was not immediately made public by police, local media report he is Flores' son, who was seen running to a neighbour's home before police arrived.

While Flores was arrested in three of the killings, the teen was arrested in one of them, police said.

Flores "admitted to killing her children", the police statement said. But it was not immediately known whether she had a lawyer who could speak on her behalf. Online jail records showed she was detained on US$6 million bail, with no court date set yet.

Prisila Canales, who lives near the ranch-style house in the West Hills neighbourhood where the killings happened, told reporters there was a disturbance late Saturday night in which the woman screamed and acted erratically until someone called authorities.

Canales said paramedics put the woman on a stretcher and that she struggled and yelled, "Where's my Bible?"

- Associated Press, additional reporting NZ Herald