Main: Jovan Trevino in court for her sentencing hearing (KLAS). Inset, top to bottom: Gihanna Fox and Christopher Fox III (GoFundMe).
A former family services worker in Nevada will spend the remainder of her days behind bars for killing her two young children, forcibly drowning her 4-year-old son and his 1-year-old sister in separate bathtubs.
Clark County District Judge Carli Kierny on Tuesday ordered 38-year-old Jovan Trevino to serve life in a state correctional facility without the chance for parole for the 2021 slayings of 4-year-old Christopher Fox III and 1-year-old Gihanna Fox, court records show. Kierny handed down the sentence after Trevino reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.
By pleading guilty to murder, Trevino avoided the possibility of facing the death penalty.
Tuesday”s sentencing hearing marked the conclusion of a case that prosecutors described as one of the most horrific instances of filicide in recent memory.
“On Monday, July 19, 2021, my babies’ precious, innocent lives were taken at the hands of their mommy,” Trevino told District Judge Carli Kierny, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I truly was not in the right mind, in the darkest place that I’ve ever been, which is evident by the horrific crime that I did commit.”
The details of those crimes, previously reported by Law&Crime, are chilling.
On the day of the murders, Trevino — who worked as a family services assistant for the Clark County Department of Family Services — tricked her 4-year-old son into the bathtub by giving him a pair of glasses and telling him he could use them to see better underwater.
Once he was on his stomach, Trevino used her leg and hand to hold the boy underwater for approximately three to four minutes until he drowned. She then moved to the master bedroom and forced her 1-year-old daughter underwater in a second tub.
After the killings, Trevino penned a suicide note and fled to Arizona, where she was eventually taken into custody at a medical center in Bullhead City after allegedly telling the hospital staff about the murders.
During the sentencing hearing, Chief Deputy District Attorney John Giordani called Trevino’s actions “unforgivable,” noting it was the most extreme case of its kind he had seen in 15 years.
The children’s grandmother, Shawna Fox, reportedly told the court that Trevino had “failed miserably” as a mother.
“I hope you see their little faces every time you close your eyes and I hope you never forgive yourself for stealing their futures,” she reportedly said in court.
Trevino’s defense attorney, Ryan Bashor, asserted that his client was facing “extreme life stressors” and a crumbling relationship with the children’s father at the time of the murders. The children’s father, Christopher Fox, had previously testified that Trevino expressed suicidal thoughts just days before the drownings, stating she felt she “couldn’t leave the kids here without her being there with them.”
Kierny told Trevino that while she could sense the defendant’s sadness, the life sentence was the only appropriate resolution.
“I know that as you live out the rest of your life in a jail cell, you’ll probably see them at night, you’ll think of them,” the judge said. “That’s really the only tribute left that you can give them at this point.”
Before ending, the judge also said she would not soon forget Trevino’s crime.
“I will remember your case forever,” she said.
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