Woman wanted in connection with Mexican daycare fire that killed 49 toddlers is arrested in Arizona

Police officers in front of the building where 49 children died in a fire at a daycare in Hermosillo, Mexico on June 6, 2009 - (AFP/Getty)

A woman wanted in connection with a fire that left 49 children dead at a daycare center in Mexico, in 2009, has been arrested in the Arizona

U.S. officials confirmed that Sandra Lucia Tellez‑Nieves, 51, was deported from the country on 2 October and handed over to Mexican authorities.

Tellez‑Nieves, a former co‑owner of the ABC Daycare Center, in Hermosillo, is accused of negligent injury and homicide in relation to the blaze, in which nearly 150 children were trapped inside the building.

View through a hole in the wall of the interior of the ABC Daycare Center where 49 children died in a fire in Hermosillo, Mexico in 2009 (AFP/Getty)

On 5 June 2009, the building caught fire while dozens of babies and infants were having their afternoon nap.

According to reports at the time, the blaze started at a car garage next door and spread via the roof to the adjoining nursery.

There were no emergency exits in the nursery, with the only way out through the front door.

There was also no sprinkler system and no fire extinguishers, the BBC reported, and smoke detectors and alarms were faulty.

Relatives of the 49 children who died in a fire at a daycare centre in Hermosillo in 2009 demonstrate with the portrait of the victims to demand justice (AFP/Getty)

As well as the 49 who died, around 100 more children were injured, many severely. Téllez‑Nieves was first sought by prosecutors in the aftermath of the blaze, but the original charges were later dismissed.

More than a decade later, in 2022, Mexican authorities reviewed the case and issued a new arrest warrant.

On 15 January 2025, Téllez‑Nieves was stopped by police in Tucson, Arizona, and taken into custody. Officials said she had been residing in the United States on an expired visitor visa at the time of her arrest.

Robert Copado‑Gutierrez, named as a “co-defendant” in the case was arrested in March by the U.S. Marshals Service, with assistance from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on charges of negligent injury and homicide linked to the fire. He remains in U.S. custody while awaiting deportation to Mexico.

In 2009, nine of the children injured in the fire were transported to Sacramento and treated at the Shriners Hospitals for Children in northern California.

Then governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mexico’s first lady at the time, Margarita Zavala, were among those who visited the children in hospital, all of whom had burns ranging from 20 – 80 per cent of total body surface area.