A California jury has found Paul Allen Perez, 63, guilty of murdering five of his children.
Perez was convicted on Tuesday, Jan. 6, of multiple counts of murder, along with one count of assault of a child under 8 with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death, according to a news release from the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said the killings occurred between 1992 and 2001 in central and northern California. Investigators later made a major breakthrough after an infant’s remains were discovered east of Woodland, about 20 miles from Sacramento, “weighted down and submerged in a cooler,” the release said.
Using familial DNA, authorities determined Perez was the infant’s biological father.
“These crimes involved pure evil,” Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said. “The defendant should die in prison. May the souls of his murdered children rest in peace.”
The conviction follows renewed attention to a cold case dating back to 2007, when a fisherman found a deceased infant inside a sealed container that had been weighed down with “heavy objects.” New DNA technology later identified the child as Nikko Lee Perez.
A coroner’s report said Nikko had been wrapped in plastic and a Winnie the Pooh blanket, then placed in a metal cooler containing pieces of metal rotors, a brick, and U-shaped metal pieces. The report listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma, and said the infant was between 1 and 3 months old when he died.
After Nikko was identified in October 2019, investigators discovered he had four siblings, who authorities say were also killed before reaching six months of age, according to the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office.
Those children — all born in California — were identified as:
- Kato Allen Perez (born 1992)
- Mika Alena Perez (born 1995)
- Nikko Lee Perez (born 1997)
- Kato Krow Perez (born 2001)
Officials said it was unclear whether all five children shared the same mother.
Authorities announced charges in 2020, noting at the time that Perez — a convicted sex offender — was already incarcerated at Kern Valley State Prison for unrelated crimes.
“The allegations announced today are heartbreaking. There is absolutely no place in our society for horrendous crimes against children,” then–California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement when the charges were filed in 2020. “At the California Department of Justice, we will do everything in our power to track down criminals who think they have evaded the grip of justice.”
Perez faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 6, according to the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
