Mom Asked Forgiveness Before Stabbing And Killing Family, Daughter Says

Police charged a Georgia mother July 6 with multiple counts of murder for allegedly stabbing her family to death. She severely injured her daughter and reportedly asked for forgiveness before cutting her.

Diana Romero, 9, claimed that her mother, Isabel Martinez, 33, told her she loved her and asked her for forgiveness before cutting her daugher. Martinez reportedly said Romera was "going to the sky to see Jesus." Romero then cried and said that she didn’t want to go, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

READ: Isabel Martinez, Georgia Mother Charged With Fatally Stabbing Her 4 Children, Husband

A case file by the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services included a caseworker's notes from a July 10 interview with Romero as well as notes from a jail interview earlier in the day with Martinez. The mother faced murder and aggravated assault charges for the July 6 deaths of her four children and husband, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Police identified the four children that Martinez allegedly stabbed as 2-year-old Axel Romero, 10-year-old Isabela Martinez, 7-year-old Dacota Romero and 4-year-old Dillan Romero. Before police arrived, she arranged all the bodies in the same room "so everyone could be together," she said.

During her July 7 court date, Martinez behaved oddly by smiling, waving and posing for the news cameras. She also told the judge that she didn’t need an attorney. Court-appointed attorney Robert Greenwald initially filed a request for psychiatric evaluation of Martinez, but later retracted the request.

Romero recounted an overnight trip to Savannah with her family, telling the caseworker that her mother behaved normally. Martinez also discussed the trip and stated that during the trip "the waves attempted to take her away and her children and she just wanted to save them." She said that she felt uncomfortable in Savannah and asked her husband, Martin Romero, to take her back home because of a "devil like spirit," she said.

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After Martinez stabbed Romero, she took her daughter to the bedroom where her husband slept to show him what occurred, Romero said. When the husband tried to help, Martinez stabbed him, Romero said. After she stabbed herself, she called the police.

Martinez told a caseworker that she is innocent and hoped authorities would free her after the case ended. She claimed a friend of the family who frequently visited the house was the one who stabbed her children and husband. Martinez refused to identify the family friend and claimed that investigators would figure it out.

According to the report, immigration police said that Martinez, who hailed from Mexico, was in the country illegally. She told the caseworker that she lived in Georgia for 12 years. Records from the child welfare agency in 2015 showed that a caseworker examined claims that the husband used a phone charger cold and a belt for disciplinary reasons. The agency concluded that the children weren’t in danger and subsequently closed the case.

According to the case report, Martinez never confessed to stabbing her family. If she is found guilty, she’ll accept the verdict but "she knows she is not guilty because she wouldn't be this calm about it," she told the caseworker.