Jobless mom charged with killing daughters

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A Mexican immigrant to California who was out of work and faced with finding a new place to live has been charged with killing two of her daughters.

The bodies of Diana Moreno, 17, and her 12-year-old sister, Edith, were found Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported. Their throats had been cut.

The mother, Antonia Gomez, 38, who also had slash wounds, was hospitalized. She was arrested Friday and charged with murder, police said.

Gomez and her daughters, including a 14-year-old who was away from home at the time of the killings, lived in a converted garage behind her mother's house in Sun Valley near Los Angeles. But the house was in foreclosure.

The family moved in with Gloria Fuentes after Gomez lost her job three months ago.

Bernardo Gomez Fuentes Jr. of Prescott, Ariz., said he and his sister grew up in a poor family in Ixtapa de la Sal, Mexico. Gomez came to the United States six years ago and made enough money to bring her daughters to California.

"She didn't have the mental well-being to deal with too much pressure," Gomez Fuentes said. "I just can't visualize her doing this, killing her girls. If she did, she didn't have her five senses."