In California, a man is facing multiple murder charges following a long-term investigation sparked by a fisherman’s grim discovery of an infant’s remains. The Yolo County Sheriff’s Office announced on Monday that Paul Allen Perez has been charged with the mass murder of his five infant children.
The case, described as “unspeakably evil” by Yolo County Sheriff Tom Lopez, has sent shockwaves through the local community and law enforcement. The arrest of Perez came just as he was about to be released from Delano State Prison for an unrelated case.
The investigation began in 2007 when a fisherman found the remains of an infant in a Yolo County waterway. It took over a decade to identify the child through DNA comparison as Nikko Lee Perez, one of Paul Allen Perez’s children.
Further investigation revealed that Nikko Lee Perez, born in Fresno in 1996, had four siblings. One of them, Kato Allen Perez, born in 1992, is also confirmed to be deceased. The FBI is currently searching for the remains of the other three infants, all of whom were allegedly killed before reaching six months of age.
Perez was charged in 2020 with five counts of felony murder and several criminal enhancements. Despite the weight of the charges, Perez has pled not guilty.
The Yolo County Sheriff’s Office has expressed the emotional toll this case has taken on the law enforcement community, particularly due to the victims’ ages. The investigation is ongoing, and Perez is due to appear in court in January.