Before 10-year-old
Marissa Kennedy was killed last February, she was allegedly forced to take off her clothes and pose naked with her mother, Sharon Carrillo, while Carrillo’s husband, Julio, physically and sexually assaulted them, according to new court documents filed by Sharon’s attorneys.
The documents portray Sharon Carrillo as a victim of torture at the hands of her husband, Marissa’s stepfather. They argue that the pair should not be tried together and that Sharon was a victim, not an accomplice, in months of abuse that resulted in the child’s death.
Julio’s torture of Sharon and Marissa had the effect of “breaking down [their] conception of reality” and caused them to submit to “a new reality created and imposed by Julio,” MacLean argued.
According to the documents, “Julio Carrillo would physically force [Sharon and Marissa] to strip naked and kneel together on the floor of their home. He would force them to hold their arms in the air and threaten to beat them with his hands and other objects if they lowered their arms,” which caused “excruciating” pain.
The court document goes on to describe that Julio sexually assaulted the woman and child. A cellphone photo, allegedly recovered by police, illustrates this scene, the filing states. Marissa appears to be 10 years old in the photo and her mother is visibly pregnant, according to the court filing.
MacLean also claims that the tactics used by detectives to interrogate Sharon in the days after Kennedy died were “coercive” in light of the new information filed today. As a result, MacLean, in the second document, is calling for all statements given by Sharon to law enforcement to be suppressed.
Darrick X. Banda, Julio’s attorney, discounted Friday’s filings.
“Sharon Carrillo’s attempts to deflect all blame onto Julio, in the end, are not going to be successful,” he said.