A young mother who may have been depressed apparently hanged three
of her small daughters and herself in a closet using pieces of clothing and
sashes, authorities said Tuesday.
A fourth child, an 8-month-old
daughter, was also found dangling in the closet but was rescued from the
family's mobile home.
"It's
horrendous. That's all I can say," Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said.
The woman was identified as Gilberta Estrada, 25. The infant, Evelyn Frayre,
was in good condition at a hospital, Fowler said. Authorities did not
immediately identify the other children, but Fowler said they were apparently
ages 5, 3 and 2.
After Estrada failed to show up for work, her sister, who lived nearby,
forced her way into the locked residence in the Oak Hills mobile home park,
about 25 miles west of Fort Worth in this rural community of 1,600 people.
The sheriff said the sister rescued the infant when she realized the baby
girl was still alive.
The sheriff said the hangings appeared to be murder-suicide because the
trailer's doors were locked from the inside and a relative said the woman had
been depressed.
The young mother and her girls were last seen alive Monday evening, he said.
The sheriff said Estrada had won a temporary restraining order in August
against Gregorio Frayre Rodriguez, who was believed to be the father of the
infant and some of the other children, after an attack on Estrada.
The sheriff said the couple had stopped living together in February. Tuesday
was the first emergency police call to Estrada's trailer, and authorities said
there was no evidence that Frayre abused the girls.
A telephone listing for Frayre, 38, could not immediately be located.
Estrada's trailer was dilapidated, with paint peeling off the brown and white
mobile home. Cactus plants and a rose bush decorated the front. Toys and a
bicycle littered the back yard.
