Formal charges filed against Salinas couple for children’s deaths
Gonzalo Curiel (L) and Tami Huntsman (R)
SALINAS — The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office has filed formal charges against a Salinas Couple in the deaths of 3-year-old Delylah Tara and 6-year-old Shaun Tara.
The couple, 39-year-old Tami Huntsman and 17-year-old Gonzalo Curiel, are to remain in custody on charges of two counts of murder, three counts of torture, one count of child abuse, and two counts of conspiracy — one to commit torture the other to commit child abuse. The are currently held out of county.
The case began to unfold on Friday, December 11, when the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office responded to a home in Quincy with regards to the welfare check-up of a 9-year-old girl.
Huntsman and Curiel were subsequently arrested on suspicion of abuse, and the investigation began.
The Plumas County Sheriff’s Office then made contact with the Police Department in Salinas — the couple’s town of residence — out of concern for the young girl and her siblings, particularly the younger siblings’ whereabouts.
Officers conducted a welfare inspection in the home on Fremont Street in the East Salinas neighborhood and found nothing to warrant further action.
Salinas police were then notified that Redding police had found two dead children in a plastic container in a storage unit. An autopsy confirmed that the two bodies were indeed 3-year-old Delylah and 6-year-old Shaun, and that the abuse had started at the east Salinas home.
The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office estimates at least a week before the couple is returned to Monterey County for court proceedings.
