Paula Eleazar Mendez, 43, was in a county jail Sunday after being treated at a hospital for swallowing a toxic substance.
She had collapsed as officers arrived at her home Saturday morning in response to a telephone call from the children's father in New York. Inside the home, the officers found the bodies of the children, ages 6 to 8, lying side-by-side on a bed, said Chris Brackett, an investigator with the Sevier County Sheriff's Office.
"I do not believe there is any dispute as to who killed these three children, and therefore who will be charged," prosecutor Tom Cooper said. "However, we have not determined at this time the particular homicide charge or punishment we will be seeking."
The notes found inside the house may help official better understand what led to the killings, De Queen Police Chief Richard McKinley said, though he declined to disclose their contents.
A family priest who visited Mendez in a hospital Saturday night described her as profoundly sorrowful.
"She has tremendous remorse. She is deeply sorry," the Rev. Salvador Marquez-Munoz said Sunday before entering St. Barbara Catholic Church for Mass. "She asked for our prayers and forgiveness because she is realizing how much she has hurt the community, as well."
Cooper said an emergency room doctor told him Mendez had not ingested enough of the toxic substance to kill herself.
Autopsies were planned on the children's bodies to determine if they had been poisoned or smothered, as their mother told police, Cooper said. He said the children's faces were not covered when police found them inside the home.
Authorities did not release the names of the three children, but said they were a twin boy and an 8-year-old girl. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported the twins were 6-year-old Samanta and Samuel Morales.
The priest said Mendez, who moved to the United States from Mexico 10 years ago, had lived in New York until last summer when she moved with her children to De Queen because wanted them to live in a safer environment.
The father remained in New York for economic reasons, the priest said. He said Mendez and the children never missed Sunday services and attended religious education classes.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!