A man has confessed to the brutal murder of his girlfriend and her three children, two of whom were his, at the weekend in Peru.
Juan César Augusto Huaripata, 28, and Jéssica Tejeda, 34, got into an argument when he arrived to the home at 3am Sunday.
Tensions escalated inside the home in El Agustino, a town in the South American country’s capital of Lima, before Huaripata stabbed Tejeda 80 times with a large kitchen knife.
He then plunged the sharp weapon into his girlfriend’s 15-year-old son, Cristian Rivadeneyra, when he tried to save his mother.
The killer set the apartment on fire and then abandoned it, causing the death of the couple’s premature three-week-old son, Angel Cesar Huaripata, and two-year-old daughter, Mía Rivadeneyra Tejeda.
Mía died at a local hospital Monday due to smoke inhalation.
Jéssica’s nine-year-old son, Fabel Rivadeneyra, was stabbed in the head and arms. Peruvian news outlets reported that he faked his death and ran out of the home to seek help from a neighbor.
Victoria Espinoza, who was a close friend of Jéssica, told DailyMail.com that Juan César Augusto had contacted attorney in order to secure full custody of Mía even though he had abandoned his daughter and girlfriend after she was born.
Jéssica, Angel César, and Cristian were laid to rest the morning of Christmas Eve.
Mía’s burial was scheduled for Wednesday, Christmas Day.
Prosecutors on Wednesday afternoon announced that Juan César Augusto would be held without bail for 18 months. He is being charged with aggravated murder, assassination, and femicide.
Jéssica Tejeda (right) was killed by her boyfriend after an argument between the couple escalated early Sunday morning inside their apartment in Peru. The couple’s two-year-old, Mía Rivadeneyra Tejeda (left), died Monday as a result of smoke inhalation after her dad set the apartment on fire
Juan César Augusto Huaripata admitted to the police in a sworn statement to killing his girlfriend and her three children, including the couple’s three-month-old son and two-year-old daughter, following an argument inside their home in Lima, Peru
Fabel Rivadeneyra (left) was suffered stab wounds in the head and arms and faked that he was dead before rushing out of the home to seek help for his older brother, Cristian Rivadeneyra, and mother, Jéssica Tejeda (right)
Three-week-old Angel César Huaripata (pictured shortly after he was born) was one of the four dead victims
Juan César Augusto was arrested by the police after he tried to escape the scene, and offered authorities a detailed explanation of why he killed the mother of his two children.
‘She told me that I was no longer going to see my son. She went into the room. Since she did not come out, I entered and I see that she had my son in the air. She said, “you know, I want to leave with my son, kill me or take I am taking your daughter away, kill me,”‘ Juan César Augusto said, according to the police report. ‘And she threw my baby to the bed, my son didn’t cry. I told her to please leave my son. I felt helpless, I didn’t think about anything but my son.’
He then explained how he attacked Jéssica although he was not aware of what he was doing.
‘I started to drive the knife into her, I was not aware of what I was doing, I was clouded. She told me to forgive her, that she didn’t want me to hurt my son, I don’t know what happened to me, she gave me my five minutes of madness,’ Juan César Augusto said.
‘Her son Cris got up, he told me what I had done, he wanted to take my knife, I also attacked him. Her other son Dustin [Fabel] showed up, I also attacked him. Then I see there was a fire. I left the room. The police found me on my way [out] with the knife in my hand. I felt respect for her because she was the mother of my children, but I never loved her, I feel sorry for what happened, I know that I hurt a family.’
Screams and cries for help were heard from the apartment. In a video filmed by a neighbor and picked up by news outlets, Jéssica is heard shouting, ‘enough already,’ before she was fatally stabbed.
Peruvian officials removed a police department’s 34-cop force after accusations were made that the precinct’s on-duty officers did not respond on time to complaint from neighbors concerned with a domestic violence dispute that resulted in the deaths of a mother and her three children
Juan César Augusto Huaripata will be held in prison without bail for 18 months. He has been charged with aggravated murder, assassination, and femicide
Jéssica Tejeda contacted her mother but the phone call went straight to the voice messaging system before she was killed by her boyfriend
Peruvian officials are looking into claims that on-duty cops at a police station located a block away from Jéssica’s home failed to respond in a timely manner and prevented the tragedy.
The station’s police force – 34 cops in all – were removed and Peru’s Ministry of the Interior said it would initiate an administrative review and seek the arrests of those who did not intervene.
‘… We have constantly given precise instructions at all police levels for the correct [handling] of cases of violence against women,’ Peru’s Ministry of the Interior said via a tweet on Monday. ‘The officers have no excuse for not acting diligently. We will apply the most drastic sanctions in this case.’
Peruvian newspaper El Comerico reported that an emergency phone call was logged at 4:09am local time.
After the neighbor’s call was not promptly responded to by the cops, another woman said she ran to the police precinct to demand assistance.
‘When I arrived, I found another man who was screaming at the police to go to help the neighbor,’ the woman said.
Clouds of smoke could be seen coming out of a third floor apartment in Lima, Peru, where a 28-year-old man unleashed an attack that left his girlfriend and three of her children dead, including the couple’s three-week-old son and two-year-old daughter
She even asked the cops to help her knock the door down, but said the police officer told her that they had already dispatched a unit. She argued that no cops had showed up.
Before dying, Jéssica placed a placed a phone call to her mother, Agustina Huayanay, approximately at 4am.
Huayanay, who is battling leukemia, told Peru 21 that the call went straight to her cellphone’s voicemail because she was preparing herself to leave for work at a local market.
‘In the audio, the nine-year-old is heard saying, mom, he already killed Cris, he already killed him,’ Huayanay.
‘I never interfered with my daughter’s relationship. I would visit her, but she never told me if they had problems. Maybe because I’m sick my daughter didn’t want to give me worries.’
Fernando Tejeda, told Exitosa Noticias that jealousy drove Juan César Augusto to kill his daughter and grandchildren because of the co-parenting relationship that existed between Jéssica and the father of her nine-year-old and 15-year-old sons.
That man also took up responsibility and claimed his ex’s two-year-old daughter as his when Huaripata disappeared after her birth.
The distraught father told Jéssica to end the abusive relationship on countless occasions. He and his wife advised her to move to an empty family home in the southern city of Pachacútec where his oldest son once lived before dying of cancer a couple of years ago.
‘I told my daughter to separate from him, to leave him, but she was still with the man, ‘Fernando Tejeda said. ‘Her mom suspected that something bad was going to happen.’