The day my great-nieces were born, I saw them once in the hospital. They were healthy, quiet, and perfect. The doctors said there were no complications, no health concerns. Each weighed about six pounds.
I held one of them because their own mother didn’t want to. Angelina, my niece, was only twenty years old when she gave birth to twins, Michelle and Marina. And from the very start, she didn’t seem to want to be their mother. I had to convince her to nurse one of her newborns.
She just didn’t pay them any attention. Fernando, her boyfriend, and the twins’ father, didn’t show much interest either. When they brought the babies home, everything changed. The house they lived in with Fernando’s family was a party house.
Everyone partied, even the grandmother. The twins spent most of their time in a small, cramped in-law suite. Angelina and Fernando chose that environment to raise their children in. I begged them to let me help.
I asked if I could visit, if I could babysit. Angelina always said no. She didn’t even let us see the babies over FaceTime. It was a strange and cruel isolation.
I knew something was wrong, but I never imagined the truth. When the twins were less than a week old, Angelina and Fernando went out partying and left the babies with Fernando’s mother. I had heard nothing but bad things about that woman. I asked, “Why wouldn’t they ask one of us?
Why leave them with her? ” It just didn’t make any sense. But no one listened to me. They never did.
Angelina’s pregnancy hadn’t been easy for her. She’d had preeclampsia during her second pregnancy and needed a blood transfusion. Her doctors warned her that getting pregnant again could be dangerous. So when I bought her a pregnancy test and it came back positive, she was shocked.
She lied to me at first, saying someone else had gotten her pregnant. I believed her until her sister slipped up and revealed the truth. I was disappointed, but I tried to support them. I even welcomed Fernando back into the family when they reconciled, even though I didn’t trust him.
He had hurt Angelina before. He’d choked her in front of their two-year-old son while I watched the surveillance footage of her running to a restaurant and begging for help that no one gave her. The police had to arrive to stop him from killing her. And yet, they got back together.
When I voiced my concerns, I was accused of stirring up drama. They told me to shut up. So I did. Now, the twins were born in 2024.
They were born on time, healthy, and with no complications. The doctors didn’t say they were premature. They didn’t say they were underweight. They were perfect.
But when Angelina and Fernando brought them home, that perfection faded. The twins stayed in that cramped in-law suite, surrounded by partying adults and neglect. They never saw a pediatrician. They never had follow-up medical care.
They were completely isolated from my side of the family. Then, on October 4th, 2023, Angelina’s twenty-first birthday, everything fell apart. Fernando drove her to work that morning. He said his grandmother was watching the babies while they were gone.
About half an hour later, he arrived home and went into the nursery. Michelle and Marina were lying unresponsive in their crib. He called 911, but it was too late. The twins were only five weeks old.
They were pronounced dead at 11:15 that morning. When I got to the house, I watched Fernando. He didn’t seem upset. He was calm, almost like nothing had happened.
He told me, “Michelle and Marina never acted like normal babies. ” I didn’t know what that meant. He said the night before, as he was putting them to bed, he saw discoloration on their skin. I immediately thought of bruises.
I knew from the start that Fernando was keeping something from everyone. And I knew Angelina was hiding something too. When I spoke to Angelina, she told me about the party they had the day before to celebrate her birthday. The twins were crying at some point, and Fernando told her to get some sleep.
He said he would take care of it. She knew that was out of character for him, but she stayed in bed anyway. The police didn’t suspect foul play at first. Some sources said the twins were visibly underweight and bruised, but they thought the bruises might have come from CPR.
They also learned from the family that the twins were premature, which could explain their small size. That was a lie. The twins were not premature. They were born healthy and on time.
Someone lied to the officers. I think it was Angelina or her mother. They wanted to make the malnourishment seem less severe, to make it seem like it wasn’t their fault. But the autopsy told the truth.
The cause of death was blunt force trauma. The medical examiner found bruising, abrasions, contusions, dehydration, lacerations, fractures, and petechiae. And some of those injuries were older. They weren’t just from the night Angelina was at work.
When I saw the twins’ x-rays, I knew there was no way I could ever forgive Angelina and Fernando. I blamed Fernando at first, until I learned about the malnourishment and dehydration. I couldn’t understand how a mother could let her newborn starve to death. I still can’t.
Angelina, meanwhile, was busy. A week after her twins died, she started a GoFundMe to help fund their funerals. She titled it “Angelina’s babies” and wrote about the sudden and unexpected passing of her beloved newborn babies. She raised $1,275 of her $10,000 goal.
When the police searched the home, they found that the twins never received any follow-up medical care after they were born. Angelina admitted they were sick once, but she and Fernando chose to keep them home rather than take them to a pediatrician. In early April of 2024, Fernando was arrested, but not for the death of his children. He was arrested for unlawful restraint against Angelina.
Court records said he forced her back inside their apartment and locked her in the bedroom when she tried to leave. Then, on April 19th, 2024, Fernando and Angelina were both arrested for the babies’ deaths. They were charged with injury to a child causing bodily injury, injury to a child by omission, and injury to a child by commission. Fernando faced two counts of injury to a child and two counts of capital murder for someone under 10 years old.
Fernando’s bond was set at $750,000 for each charge, totaling $3 million. He and his family haven’t paid it. Angelina’s bond was lowered to $100,000, and her mother paid it in full. During Angelina’s bond hearing, her mother testified that she was a good mother with no prior criminal history.
Angelina herself interrupted the judge multiple times, shouting that Fernando was the last person to be alone with the children. She was escorted out of the room. Her family defended her publicly. Her sister said she was one of the best mothers she knew.
Her grandmother said, “We know in our hearts that she’s innocent. ”
I don’t agree. I’ve been called crazy for years for speaking out against family members. But when I saw those x-rays, I knew I couldn’t stay silent anymore.
Those babies didn’t deserve what they went through. They were denied all chances at life, and they never even got to know more than five weeks on this earth. Angelina didn’t stay out of trouble for long. In March of 2025, she was put back in jail for violating house arrest.
She had visited a strip club, claiming she was looking for a way to earn money to support her surviving children. But Angelina doesn’t even have custody of her children anymore. She told me she wants to remove herself from this earth because she still loves Fernando and can’t bring herself to testify against him. The state is confident they have a case against Fernando.
The prosecutor said, “These injuries are pretty severe, and based on the symptoms and the injuries, he was the only person who was around these children. The only person who could have possibly inflicted these injuries. ”
Fernando’s defense attorney, Mario Madrid, says he’s not guilty. He told the press, “Under the law, he’s innocent at this time.
” He also said his client seemed scared, shocked, and young. I’ve heard rumors that Fernando and his lawyer plan to go for an insanity defense. But I know the truth. His actions weren’t driven by insanity.
They were driven by entitlement, malice, and a lack of empathy. Fernando and Angelina both plead not guilty. They’re considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But I know what I saw.
I’ve broken off from my family. I can’t be around people who make excuses for them. I’ve received vague threats from my own mother, warning me not to testify against Angelina. But I don’t care.
The twins were loved. They were loved by me. I just wanted one person in the family to talk about them, to say that there was family who cared about them.
I couldn’t let them be forgotten.
