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Trial date set for father charged with infant homicides
WOODLAND — More than four years after his arrest, a former Yolo County man is set to stand trial this fall on charges he brutally abused and murdered five of
April 12, 2024
WOODLAND — More than four years after his arrest, a former Yolo County man is set to stand trial this fall on charges he brutally abused and murdered five of his infant children over a nine-year period.
Paul Allen Perez, 61, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of the allegations, which the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office filed in January 2020 after linking him by DNA to one of the slain children.
The investigation began years earlier, in 2007, with a fisherman's discovery of a weighted-down metal cooler in a slough east of Woodland. Inside were the remains of an infant believed to be less than 6 months old when he suffered blunt-force trauma and died, Yolo County coroner's officials said.
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From there, investigators looked for birth records connected to Perez, ultimately finding six children fathered with his second wife, Yolanda: Brittany, born in 1990; Kato, born in 1992; Mika, born in 1995; Nikko, born in 1996; Nikko Lee, born in 1997; and another Kato, born in 2001, Yolo County Deputy Coroner Laurel Weeks testified at Perez's 2021 preliminary hearing.
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Of the six, only Brittany is known to be alive today, according to court testimony. Both she and Yolanda Perez underwent multiple interviews with Yolo County sheriff's detectives during which they confessed to witnessing the infants' abuse and disappearances, but never reported them because Perez allegedly threatened them with physical harm and death.
Yolanda Perez also told detectives that the remains of other children also were sunk into Conway Slough, but searches of the area yielded no results.
The DA’s Office later charged Yolanda Perez with murder and child endangerment in connection with four of the deaths. She pleaded guilty to the child endangerment counts in September 2022 and still awaits sentencing, but is free on her own recognizance until then.