Socorro "Cora" Caro was a con artist and alcoholic woman in Santa Rose Valley who killed her three sons after her husband said he was divorcing her.
After tucking her sons into bed, she shot three of them fatally, sparing the infant Gabriel. She then shot herself in the mouth but somehow survived. Candice DeLong commented that some killers that killed their own children would make "a very half-hearted suicidal gesture". However, this wasn't the case as Caro shot herself in the mouth and very few people survive that.
While Caro originally put forth a defense of an insanity plea, her lawyer saying the damage she sustained in the suicide attempt rendered her unable to remember the murders, she withdrew the defense against her lawyer's advice.
After awakening from a coma, she was convicted on three counts of 1st Degree Murder and was sentenced to death in 2001. She still awaits execution.