‘Pure evil’: California man convicted for decades-old slayings of his infant children
By Lindsay Weber
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YOLO COUNTY, California (KCRA) — A California man was convicted by a Yolo County jury on Tuesday of multiple counts of murder for the deaths of his infant children over the course of a decade, according to the district attorney’s office.
Paul Allen Perez, 63, described by the DA as a transient throughout Central California, was arrested in January 2020 in connection with the slayings of his five children.
The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office said the conviction stems from murders between 1992 and 2001 in Central and Northern California. The investigation began on March 29, 2007, after one of the infants’ remains was found by fishermen, weighed down and submerged in a cooler in the Conway Slough east of Woodland. DNA testing determined Perez was the biological father.
“In my 40 years in law enforcement, I cannot think of a case more disturbing than this one,” Yolo County Sheriff Tom Lopez told KCRA 3 in 2020.
After investigators identified the infant’s remains as 1-month-old Nikko Lee Perez, further DNA analysis revealed the baby had siblings. Kato Allen Perez was born in Merced in 1992 and is known to be deceased, the sheriff’s office said at the time.
The three other siblings were also believed to be deceased by 2020, but their remains had not been located. They are: Mika Alena Perez, born in Merced in 1995; Nikko Lee Perez, born in Fresno in 1997; and Kato Krow Perez, born in Fresno in 2001.
Beyond the conviction of multiple counts of murder, Perez was also convicted Tuesday of one count of assault on a child under 8 with force likely to create bodily injury resulting in death. A case enhancement for multiple murders was also found to be true.
“These crimes involved pure evil,” said Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig in a news release. “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 scheduled to be sentenced on April 6.
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