A mother is accused of fatally stabbing her three young children, including a six-month-old baby, after their bodies were found inside the family home.
Police had launched a manhunt for triple murder suspect Liliana Carrillo, 30, after the children's grandmother returned from work at 9.30 am on Saturday and found their bodies in an apartment in Los Angeles.
The children - a six-month-old baby, two-year-old toddler and a three-year-old - died at the scene.
Carrillo was missing, sparking a state-wide search that ended with her arrest hours later in Ponderosa, a city 180 miles away, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said.
Shocked neighbour Mishal Hashima told CBS News: “It’s so sad. Three children under the age of three. What kind of person can do that?”
Carrillo is the only suspect in the triple murder investigation in the neighbourhood of Reseda, said police.
Detectives suspect she killed the children and then travelled north in her car to Bakersfield, where she allegedly stole a truck.
As police circulated her photo on social media during the manhunt, she was arrested after a passing motorist spotted a woman on the side of a road and called 911.
Lt Raul Joel of the LAPD told reporters at the murder scene: "These are the moments we carry throughout our career. It’s hard to process that [innocent lives have been lost] as a police officer."
"We don't know the background of the family... We're just trying to this puzzle together at this time," the force's Lt Anthony Cato said in a statement.
Neighbour Elizabeth Cuevas, who lives above the apartment where the murders took place, told the Los Angeles Times she had met one of the children, a girl.
She said: “She was a perfect little angel.
"She was precious beyond what you could imagine.”
"They were beautiful. An angel shouldn't go that way."
Cuevas said she had never heard shouting coming from the apartment or of any problems – only the sound of cartoons on the TV.
It was unclear if Carillo lived at the apartment where the children were found dead.
