Sandi Dawn Nieves

I recently did a combined blog about mothers, Dora Buentrostro and Socorro Caro. They were both mothers in California that were convicted of murdering their children (three each) who would face trials while they continued to maintain that the father's of the children were the actual murderers and they were innocent. Both women were convicted and sentenced to death and remain on death row. The case of Sandi Dawn Nieves came in between those cases. While Dora Buentrostro committed her crime in October of 1994 she was convicted and the jury recommended the death sentence in July of 1998, one month after Sandi Nieves murdered her children. By the time Socorro Caro committed her crime in November of 1999 Buentrostro was sitting on death row and Sandi Nieves was awaiting trial, but she too was facing the death penalty.

According to prosecutors and even Sandi Nieves' surviving son, who was fourteen at the time, on the night of June 30, 1998 Sandi Nieves told her five children to gather sleeping bags and blankets in their Los Angeles County California home. She told the children they were having a “camp out” in what some have described as the kitchen but others say was an adjoining dining room that was also used as a den. Nieves was the mother of fourteen year old David and four daughters, Jaqlene, 5, Kristl, 7, Nikolet, 12 and Rashel, 11. David would later tell a jury that at some time after midnight he and a few of his sisters awoke while coughing and gagging. He would say that he and his sisters asked their mother to leave the home and she told them to stay where they were. David described he and his sisters as children who did as they were told so they remained. David stated that his mother told him to put his face into his blanket and not long later he believes he passed out. A while later he awoke again with a dry throat and as he opened the refrigerator to get a drink he saw his sisters and mother all laying in the dining room area. The girls appeared to have a foam like substance coming from their mouths and it seems the home had been burnt.

I want to state that just exactly how things were done was not completely clear. The four girls would be found dead, this we do know. Autopsies seem to say their cause of death was smoke inhalation. However, it was indicated that the stove (which I can only assume was a gas stove) was opened to emit gasses and that at some point Sandi Nieves poured gasoline around the home, but not specifically on the children and lit at match. I could not find a record that an active fire was found. Research indicated that there was scorched carpets and things inside the home burnt but that the exterior was not damaged and apparently neither were the bodies it seems. By the sounds of things despite reports of gasoline being poured the fire may have burnt itself out. I also found no complete record as to just how the authorities were notified for sure. Basically the research stated that when authorities did arrive, no matter how they were led there, they found the four girls were dead and David and Sandi were sent to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.

So how did things get to this point and what led to the murder of four children? Prosecutors would call this a mass murder that was motivated by hatred. They would claim that the girls were murdered, not just to get even with their father, as is often the case, but to get even with all men in her life. Whether this is accurate or not is anyone's guess.

It took several articles to piece together things involving Sandi's life, as well as the lives of their children. It appears that Sandi was first married to Fernando Nieves. They had three children, David, Rashel and Nikolet. At some point they divorced. In June of 1989 Sandi married David Folden. The interesting thing about David Folden is the prior to their marriage David was married to Sandi's mother. I could not find when David had entered Sandi's life or how long he was married to Sandi's mother. It does appear that David had older, possibly adult children by 1998 so there is an indication that there were several years between their ages. At any rate at some point David Folden adopted Sandi's three children while the couple went on to have Jaqlene and Kristl together. David and Sandi separated in February of 1997 and their divorce was final in August of 1997. What occurred after this is strangely in dispute it seems.

Some reports say that just prior to the murders, a boyfriend had broken up with her and that David Folden not only had filed to annul the adoption of the older children and had also either filed for more visitation and/or custody (there are different reports) of the two daughters he shared with Sandi. Sandi would apparently be vocal in believing that his motive was to avoid paying child support. When it came to surnames for the children things got a bit more confusing. David Nieves was always shown with this surname and after the murders he went to live with his father, Fernando and his wife Charlotte. As far as Nikolet and Rashel some times their surnames was listed as Nieves, sometimes it was listed as Folden and sometimes it was Folden-Nieves. Their tombstones however show their names as Nieves-Folden. So, it seems unclear just what the status of the adoption was not just on a legal front but on an emotional front at the time of the murders.

Sandi went on trial in 2000 and it seems that the drama just continued in the case. Sandi was given a public defender by the name of Howard Waco. Throughout the three and a half month trial Waco and the judge seemed to have had a bad relationship. The judge sanctioned Waco several times to the tune of several thousand dollars. After the trial the judge waived all of the sanctions and fines except for the first one which was for $500 for “failure to comply with discovery rules.” Waco attempted to argue throughout the trial that Sandi was not “legally unconscious” at the time the act occurred. Basically what he attempted to say was that while she appeared conscious, she was in like a “sleepwalking state.” He blamed this on hormonal imbalances, stress and supposed adverse reactions to prescription drugs. It does not appear that Waco had a lot to back up this defense and I believe that much of that resulted in his sanctions and the animosity that was displayed in the court between all of the parties. Waco would later say that he was barred from presenting all of his evidence and even at one time throughout the trial had filed to have the judge removed claiming he was prejudice against him. An example to show how bad things were, in the first three hours of Waco's closing argument the prosecution objected more than sixty times saying he was misstating the evidence and more often than not the judge agreed with the prosecution. Several times in that closing argument Waco apologized for his behavior or at least the atmosphere of the trial. Sandi apparently testified that she had “flashbacks” of her holding a lighter but she remembered nothing of the night.

The thing that I found interesting with this is that when Socorro Caro when on trial for her crime a few years later her defense would not just sound like Dora Buentrostro's where she accused the father of the children being the murderer, but she also seemed to take some of Sandi's story also. First, Caro would also apparently attempt suicide, which prosecutors claimed in Sandi's trial also, and survive. Secondly, while Caro would use her brain injury as the reason, she would also claim to have no memory of the crime. One has to wonder if this was not a defense tactic, although neither seemed to work for Buentrostro or Nieves. The other thing that I find interesting about the three cases, aside from all happening in California in a period of about five years, is that all three women were apparently of some type of Hispanic heritage.

The defense did not win over the jury and on July 27, 2000 Sandi was convicted on four counts of first degree murder, arson and attempted murder. She was officially sentenced to death on October 6^th of that year. Today, like Dora Buentrostro and Socorro Caro, Sandi sits on death row in California with over 700 other inmates. It appears that her appeals have all been denied and her conviction and sentence have been repeatedly affirmed. Whether she, or anyone else is ever executed in California is anyone's guess at this point.