Georgia mother charged in stabbing that killed four kids, husband

A metro-Atlanta mother has been accused of stabbing her husband and four children to death.

A fifth child is still fighting for her life.

Isabel Martinez, 33, was arrested and booked into the Gwinnett County Detention Center just before 11 a.m. on Thursday. She is charged with six counts of aggravated assault, five counts of murder and five counts of malice murder.

She’s also being held for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Police showed up at the Martinez home on Emory Lane in unincorporated Loganville after a woman called 911 from inside the house to tell them that several people had been stabbed at about 4:47 a.m. The caller may have been Martinez, police said.

When officers arrived, they found the father, who was in his mid-30s, dead in the home along with four of his children, all under the age of 10. Pihera said it’s up to the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the exact cause of death, but warrants against Martinez allege that she stabbed the family members sometime between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.

“Fortunately, our officers found a female under the age of 10 who was suffering from very serious injuries,” Pihera said. “And she was taken to a local hospital.”

As of about noon, Pihera said she knew the little girl was still alive. But her exact condition is unknown.

“We are hoping and praying that the remaining victim survives her injuries and makes a full recovery,” she said.

Police and media crawled all over the normally quiet Loganville mobile home neighborhood as the Gwinnett County Police Department’s Crime Scene Unit processed the scene. Their white, clinical vehicle stood out in contrast with the playground equipment in the victims’ yard.

Neighbor Ivan Nava, 15, said this wasn’t anything he’d seen in the neighborhood before.

“It’s a good community right here,” Nava said. “This is just really surprising.”

He described the neighborhood as being tight-knit where everybody seemed to know everybody. The victims even had cousins who lived in the area, just a few doors down from where the stabbing took place, he said.

Family members declined to speak to the media.

Nava said the Martinezes were newcomers to the neighborhood. The kids and their parents had moved in within the last month or two and weren’t particularly well-known yet.

Other neighbors told media outlets that Martinez’s father had recently died and that she had been depressed. Nava said he’d heard Martinez arguing with somebody else in the house prior to Thursday — which he found odd in such a quiet community.

“She came outside crying,” he said.

Nava said he’d also seen the children around the neighborhood before. He said they seemed like normal, happy kids.

That’s the impression Jim Hollandsworth got of the five kids, too. He works for the Path Project, an after-school program that helps kids in mobile home parks get to high school graduation. He said most the kids in the Loganville neighborhood know about and attend the program.

He said the victim children began attending almost as soon as they moved to the neighborhood.

“Some of my staff knew the kids well,” Hollandsworth said. “They said they were great and happy kids.”

Now those kids and the crimes against them have become national news. Pihera said she can’t recall any murder involving children that has been this deadly druing her time serving Gwinnett.

“This is a horrendous crime,” she said. “What prompts a person to take the life of such innocent children and her spouse is something we may never understand.”

Martinez’s first appearance hearing is scheduled for Friday at 9 a.m.