Fort Wayne mother admits to killing children, neighbor in jailhouse interview

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — The Fort Wayne mother accused of killing her two children in the backseat of a stolen car in late September said she did so to keep them safe and usher them onto heaven.

In an exclusive interview with Brett Thomas, a reporter with WISH-TV’s sister station WANE, over video chat from the Elkhart County Jail on Monday, Amber Pasztor admitted to smothering her two children to death, one by one. Pasztor faces two charges of murder in Elkhart County for the deaths of 6-year-old Rene Pasztor and 7-year-old Liliana Hernandez – charges she said unequivocally she is guilty of.

With a phone to her ear and speaking matter-of-factly, Pasztor told WANE how she pushed in the door of the home of father, the legal guardian of the children, grabbed the children and put them into a stolen car, and just started driving. Pasztor said she drove to Michigan when she received word that an Amber Alert had been issued.

At that point, that afternoon, Pasztor said she decided to to kill her children. She told WANE she didn’t have the heart to shoot them, so she smothered them.

“They were in good hands but I don’t think they were safe,” Pasztor said. “My kids are in a better place…they’re in heaven now. They don’t have no worries no more.”

Pasztor also admitted to fatally shooting her neighbor, 66-year-old Frank Macomber, in a ditch off Wallen Road in Fort Wayne. Pasztor has not been charged with Macomber’s death.

Pasztor said she made the plan days beforehand, when she arranged to go camping with him and have sex with him. In a wooded area off Wallen Road, then, Pasztor said she shot Macomber with his own gun once, killing him, then took his car. She said she dumped the gun in a Michigan river.

WANE will air more of Brett Thomas’ interview with Pasztor from the Elkhart County Jail on Tuesday, including how Pasztor said the Amber Alert that was issued did not only fail to save her children, but actually cost them their lives.