Family Of Gladys Machado Speaks About Horrific Triple Murder

NORTHWEST MIAMI-DADE (CBS4) — Crime scene investigators spent more than four hours friday night at the home where a mother and her daughters were found dead earlier in the week.

The woman who discovered the scene Tuesday asked that we not identify her but said in Spanish that she smelled a bad odor in the house and thought there might be a dead animal. As she looked through the house, she says she saw a closet door partially open. "I really don't know what I saw.

I was in shock at that moment," she said. She says she ran out of the house and called 911. "I think I saw death, a dead person," she said.

For the first time since a horrific tragedy that took the life of Gladys Machado and her two little girls; Machado's sister and stepmother are speaking out:

"She was so beautiful and happy. I don't know why someone would ever do something like this," said Odalys Machado. The bodies of her sister, Gladys Machado and her two daughters, Daniela,4, and Julia,8, were discovered inside at closet of their home Tuesday at Northwest 4th St. and Northwest 73rd Ave.

The sister and stepmother spoke with CBS4 as Miami-Dade Police crime scene investigators returned to the home Friday night, apparently looking for more evidence.

They refused to say why they had returned to the scene. But some investigators were seen going in to the home, after putting on crime scene boots and gloves. They also sealed off the home once again with yellow crime scene tape and were seen with bags to collect evidence.

"I have shock. I am very much in shock. Gladys was such a good person and a beautiful mother," said Emma Martinez, the stepmother of Gladys Machado.

"The children were so beautiful," she said. "They used to come to my home on weekends when Gladys was going out to the movies or other places. They were great kids."

"She was a great mother," said Odalys Machado. "Her daughters used to come over and play with me all the time, even wake me up in the morning. These are things you never get back."

"Whoever did this I want them to fess up," she told CBS4. "Someone needs to pay for this. That's all I want. I will not be happy until this happens.

Odalys Machado told D'Oench that her father was devastated by this tragedy.

Machado told CBS4 that her sister had been dating another man since she became estranged from her husband, 28-year-old Alberto Sierra.

Sierra stopped by the Kendall Miami-Dade Police station earlier this week and gave police a statement. He was released and police say he is not a person of interest.

Sierra has an arrest record dating back to 2005 that includes arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, selling cocaine and the illegal possession of weapons by a convicted felon.

CBS4 news partner, "The Miami Herald," also reported that he had been arrested for domestic battery in 2010 after he reportedly bit Gladys Machado on the forearm and stole her gun.

A similar allegation surfaced this week from Michael Padrino, who is Machado's previous husband and the father of the girls. Padrino was involved in a bitter custody battle with Machado.

In a letter to a Judge in the custody case in October, 2011, Padrino said he felt his childrens' lives were in danger. He based that after one of his daughters reportedly told a state child welfare worker that Sierra had bitten her on the arm.

But the Judge refused to grant Padrino full custody of the children, saying that while the Department of Children and Families had removed the children from Machado's home during an investigation, the agency later returned them to the home.

Padrino, who is mourning the loss of his two daughter, has asked for privacy and is declining to comment.

Sierra has also avoided the media. In an interview on Thursday with D'Oench, Sierra's mother said, "My son is a good person and he is innocent."

Miami-Dade Police have not said how