California man convicted of torture deaths of 2 children

SALINAS, Calif. (AP) — A jury in Northern California convicted a 20-year-old man of torturing, starving and beating two children whose bodies were found in a storage unit.

KSBW-TV in Salinas reports a jury on Monday found Gustavo Curiel guilty in the 2015 killings of a 7-year-old boy and his 3-year-old sister. The jury also found him guilty of torturing their older sister in their Salinas apartment.

Curiel’s former girlfriend and the children’s relative, 42-year-old Tami Huntsman, pleaded guilty in February to two counts of murder. The children were in Huntsman’s care.

Authorities found the oldest child, then 9, injured in the backseat of an SUV in December 2015.

The child told investigators that Huntsman and Curiel killed her younger siblings on Thanksgiving after she was caught stealing a bagel.

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Information from: KSBW-TV.