ELKHART, Ind. (AP) — A woman arrested in connection with the deaths of her four young children was so depressed after losing her job recently that she was hospitalized for 12 days, the father of two of the victims said.

Gonzalo Lopez said in a newspaper interview that Angelica Alvarez sank into a deep depression about a month ago when she lost her job at a factory where she had worked for three years.

“Losing her job had a huge effect on her,” Lopez said. “She was in such bad shape she had to be hospitalized.”

Lopez said Alvarez spent 12 days in a psychiatric hospital before she was released.

“I went to see her three, four, five times,” he said. “I took the kids so they could see her.”

Alvarez, 27, was arrested Thursday in connection with the deaths two days earlier of her four children: Jennifer Lopez, 8, Gonzalo Lopez, 6, Daniel Valdez, 4, and Jessica Valdez, 2. Autopsies have shown the children died of asphyxia, but investigators have released no further details about their deaths.

Prosecutors were expected to announce the charges against Alvarez.

Alvarez, who was found near death next to her children’s bodies, is being held at Elkhart General Hospital. Authorities say she is expected to survive.

Lopez, 42, said he last saw Alvarez on Monday, the day before the children were killed.

“She seemed normal,” Lopez said.

Lopez said he met Alvarez in Mexico. He said they lived in Lázaro Cárdenas, a port city in the state of Michoacan, where Alvarez worked at a food stand that he often visited.

A decade ago, Lopez and Alvarez moved to Goshen, where Lopez had family.

Alvarez, however, left her entire family behind in Mexico and did not have any relatives in the area.

“It must have been very hard for her to leave her family behind,” said Maria Garcia, a local resident who had baby-sat for the children.

Funerals for the children are scheduled for Tuesday, said Nancy Monges, with the Chapel Hill Funeral Home in Osceola, which is handling arrangements. The funeral for the two Lopez children was planned for 11 a.m. at the Osceola Church of the Brethren. The funeral for the Valdez children is scheduled for 11 a.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Elkhart.