Mireya Lopez: Arizona Mother Accused Of Drowning Her Twin Boys Because ‘Nobody Loved Them’ Faces First-Degree Murder Charges

Mireya Lopez is accused of drowning her twin toddlers, telling police that “nobody loved them,” and she was trying to spare them a life of being bullied.

The Avondale, Arizona, mother was arrested this weekend after police responded to her home to find the twin boys dead. Officers say Lopez admitted to holding the boys down in the bathtub and later stabbed one of them in the neck with a pen. She then wrapped the boys in blankets and brought them to an upstairs bathroom.

It was there that Lopez’s mother found the toddlers. The woman initially believed they were sleeping, but she soon discovered they were dead. She attempted CPR and called police.

Mireya Lopez later told police that she did not want the boys to grow up experiencing a difficult life. She also admitted to trying to drown her 3-year-old stepbrother, who she claimed was mistreated.

As First Coast News reported, Mireya Lopez had a troubled past herself.

“Lopez had a history of mental illness and was reportedly under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident, according to court records. Lopez also stated that she suffered from manic depression, psychosis and schizophrenia. She said she took medication for her illnesses as directed and was unable to sleep without it. Investigators reported Lopez saying that she did not want her children growing up with the same difficulties that she faced.”

A disturbingly similar case made international headlines earlier this year. A Turkish mother named Nuray Sacan was accused of killing her 10-year-old son because his ears were large and led to bullying. The mother had scheduled plastic surgery for her son, but it left his ears swollen, which reportedly made her even more upset.

“He became very ugly,” she reportedly told investigators. “He would have felt even more ashamed in front of his friends. I did it to save him such embarrassment. I was trying to protect him from a lifetime of pain.”

According to the Mirror U.K., the 37-year-old mother then took her son into a bathroom and strangled him to death with a scarf, thus ending his life, and, in her mind, the potential for future bully attacks.

Mireya Lopez is facing two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder for the drowning deaths of her twin boys, and the attempted drowning of her 3-year-old stepbrother. Her bail has been set at $2 million.

[Image via Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department]