María del Carmen S.C, charged with suffocating her two children in December 2010, has been found dead in her cell in Villanubla prison. She had apparently hanged herself.
María del Carmen S.C, was due to be judged on may 4th 2012 and was facing a jail term of 40 years for her crimes.
In December 2010, she sedated and then suffocated her two children, 11 year old María and 9 year old Jairo in what the prosecution deemed a premeditated act of murder. The defence, by contrast, argued that the defendant suffered an episode of mental illness as a result of the break-up of her marriage.