2 children found dead in Santa Ana hotel were boy, girl

The two children found dead after their mother attempted suicide were a boy and a girl, according to the Orange County coroner’s office.

The woman was booked on two counts of murder after police found her two children dead in a hotel room shortly after she attempted suicide Saturday morning, police said.

The names and ages of the woman and children have not been officially released pending notification of the children’s father, said Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna, but he added that the children were not infants.

The woman, whose last known address is in Scottsdale, Ariz., attempted to ram her car into an electrical box behind a Home Depot store in the 2300 block of Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa about 8 a.m. Saturday, police said. Steel poles blocked the vehicle from reaching the electronic equipment, Bertagna said.

There was a propane tank in her car, which she thought would make the vehicle explode, and the woman uncooperative and attempted to strangle herself when officers arrived on scene, Bertagna told KTLA-TV Channel 5.

When rescue workers arrived, she mentioned the two dead children, who were found shortly afterward in a third-floor room of a Hampton Inn & Suites in nearby Santa Ana, police said.

Investigators were processing the scene Saturday night.

The woman was treated at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach and turned over to police.

Bertagna said the woman is being held at the Santa Ana Police Department and will be booked into the city jail. She is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday, he said.

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