The slaying of three young children at a Reseda apartment complex Saturday left the neighborhood stunned by the violence and in mourning.

Elizabeth Cuevas, who lives in an apartment above the one where the crime took place, said she met one of the children, a “sweet little girl” who asked if she could pet her Chihuahua mix.

“She was a perfect little angel,” she said. “She was precious beyond what you could imagine.”

She said the girl was the middle child and that she believed the other two children were boys.

The little girl was soft-spoken but not overly shy or afraid, she said.

Liliana Carrillo, the mother, was taken into custody in Tulare County after leading authorities on a long-distance chase in which she allegedly carjacked a pickup truck in Bakersfield, authorities said.

Cuevas said she never heard any yelling coming from the apartment, only the sounds of cartoons, which she said could be heard at all hours, sometimes as late as 10 p.m. She also never saw police respond to the unit before Saturday.

“I’m going to be processing this for quite some time,” she said.

“We knew something was terribly wrong,” Edward Yepez said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.