Slain girl’s mother left shattered

LAKE STEVENS – Patricia Sotelo remembers the last time she saw her daughter.

The mother and little girl held hands and twirled. That was six months ago.

Sotelo, who is in the Snohomish County Jail on a drug conviction, learned Monday that her daughter, Sirita, 4, had died Friday, two days earlier.

“I just knew something was wrong. I knew it. I had a dream that my little girl had died,” said Sotelo, who has been in jail since November. Sotelo talked with The Herald on Wednesday with a counselor at her side.

Detectives are investigating Sirita’s death as a homicide.

Deputies found the girl’s body Friday night at her father’s home in the 2500 block of 101st Avenue NE in Lake Stevens. The cause of death was not released Wednesday.

An autopsy revealed that the girl had injuries to her body, Lake Stevens Police Chief Kevin Prentiss said, but he declined to say where or how the girl was hurt or if those injuries caused her death.

Prentiss said sheriff’s investigators are aware that a call was made to the Washington State Poison Control hotline the day Sirita’s death was reported, and are looking into that.

Dr. Bill Robertson, the poison control center’s medical director, said a woman who said she was Sirita’s aunt reported that the girl had a mild stomachache after possibly ingesting some gun cleaner.

“She sounded very reasonable. You couldn’t suspect anything suspicious in the phone call,” Robertson said.

The woman was advised to give Sirita milk or ice cream. No one answered the phone when someone from the agency called back a couple of hours later, Robertson said.

Sirita had been living with her father, 30, and stepmother, 25, since April 2003, said Kathy Spears, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social and Health Services. No allegations of abuse or neglect have been filed involving Sirita’s father or stepmother, Spears said.

The couple’s four children and their cousin were removed from the home on Friday and placed in protective custody. Attempts to reach the family at their home on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Sirita had been in and out of foster care since she was born Feb. 12, 2000. Sotelo’s cousin Mary Rivas said she and her husband had planned to adopt the girl before she was given to her father.

“Now, she’s lost to us,” said Rivas, who lives in California. “She was dearly loved by her family. We and her mom will do everything we can to find justice for this little girl.”

The family is still reeling from the death of Sotelo’s 23-year-old son, Charles Lee Cerda. He was shot to death in October during a fight in Oakland, Calif.

“They’re together now,” Sotelo said of her only children.

Sotelo, 40, is left to mourn in jail. The only way she can get any information about what happened to her daughter is by making collect phone calls or relying on detectives to call her.

“I love my little girl,” Sotelo said, fidgeting in a jail visitation room, her dark hair tied back in a long braid. “She was an amazing child.”

Sotelo said she has battled cocaine addiction since she was a teenager. Her daughter was born with the drug in her body.

Sotelo said she cleaned up for three years and graduated from drug court in an attempt to get Sirita back.

“Drugs took my daughter away,” she said.

Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.

Herald writer Katherine Schiffner contributed to this story.

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