Monster Paul Allen Perez, 63, has been convicted by a northern California jury of killing his five infant children over a nine-year period
A “pure evil” dad has been found guilty of killing his five infant children over a nine-year period.
Paul Allen Perez, 63, was convicted on Tuesday of four counts of murder by a Yolo County jury in northern California. He was also found guilty of one count of assault of a child under eight “with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death”, the District Attorney’s Office said.
The convictions relate to the deaths of five babies, all under six months old, who were killed at different locations across Central and Northern California between 1992 and 2001.
Perez’s crimes began to unravel in 2007 when investigators discovered the remains of a baby weighted down in a canal and hidden inside a cooler in the Conway Slough, a waterway east of Woodland, California. A coroner determined the baby boy – wearing just a nappy and wrapped in a blanket – was around one month old when he died. DNA evidence was preserved after the death was ruled a homicide.
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The baby’s identity remained a mystery for 12 years. In 2019, the California Department of Justice used DNA analysis to identify Perez as the biological father. The child was later named Nikko Lee Perez and found to have been born on November 8, 1996, in Fresno, California.
Investigators then uncovered that Nikko was one of five siblings who had died. The four other children were identified as Kato Allen Perez, born in 1992, Mika Alena Perez, born in 1995, Nikko Lee Perez, born in 1997 and Kato Krow Perez, born in 2001. They were all born in Fresno or Merced to Yolanda Perez. The remains of only two of the five children have been recovered.
When charged in 2020, Perez was already behind bars at the Kern Valley State Prison for unrelated offences. He was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, including special circumstances for torture in 2020. During the trial, Yolanda Perez described years of abuse and threats of rape. She testified that Perez killed their first child, Kato Allen, in 1992, when she heard him hitting the infant, according to the Davis Enterprise.
Prosecutors said Perez went on to kill four more of his children just months after they were born, threatening to harm his wife if she went to police. “He said he’d snap my neck, because he can,” she said, crying to the jury.
Yolanda Perez pleaded guilty to five counts of child endangerment. She was initially charged with murder, but the charges were dropped in exchange for her testimony. She now faces up to 10 years in prison. The couple had six children together. Brittany, the eldest, is the only survivor.
“These children are dead, and they’re dead because Paul Perez killed them. One time is an accident; five times is intentional, ladies and gentlemen,” Deputy District Attorney David Robbins concluded during the trial. “There was no remorse, there was no regret, there was no acknowledgment they were his children. That’s the mindset of a killer.”
“These crimes involved pure evil,” Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said after the verdict. “The defendant should die in prison. May the souls of his murdered children rest in peace.”
Perez faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is due to be sentenced on April 6 in Yolo County Superior Court.
