Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of physical abuse that might be upsetting to some readers.

() Police found Autumn Mercado dead at the bottom of a staircase in her Utah home earlier this month.

Her husband, Carlos Mercado, told investigators he thought his wife was asleep, covered her with a blanket and left two children at the house to buy beer.

He claims Autumn Mercado fell down the stairs from vertigo after drinking until the early hours of the morning leading him to believe she’d fallen asleep at the bottom of the stairs.

Autumn Mercado’s sister, Summer Christiansen, doesn’t buy his story.

“If you love them, how do you not pick them up? How do you not put them on a couch? How do you not cuddle them, put them back in bed?” Christiansen said on “Banfield.” “I don’t believe it.”

She told that the thought of Autumn Mercado’s children coming across her dead body “made me want to throw up when I found out,” calling the situation “disgusting.”

“We’re a family. We love hard, and we’re living a nightmare,” Christiansen said.

Carlos Mercado has since been charged with child abandonment and failure to report a death. And it’s not the first time he’s faced charges.

In 2022, he was found guilty of assault and domestic violence in the presence of a child. One year earlier, he was charged with the same crimes, though prosecutors never made contact with the victim, identified as his wife Autumn.

In 2019, he was found guilty of third-degree felony aggravated assault against his then-fiancé, Autumn.

Christiansen tells the family didn’t know the “extent” of the abuse Autumn endured.

“Now that she is passed, you know, people are coming forward, telling us that Autumn confided in them,” she said.

Autumn, she said, was trying to protect how her family viewed Carlos Mercado — telling them she’d fallen while riding a bike or gotten hurt by accident.

“He didn’t protect her at all. We did not know it was to this degree. I mean, she was slashed with a knife. She got her teeth knocked out … we did not know,” Christiansen explained.

“You start to hear certain things, and then you start to believe,” she added.

When asked whether anyone told the family that Carlos Mercado had pushed Autumn Mercado down the stairs previously, Christiansen said: “The answer is yes.”

Carlos Mercado is being held without bail at the Salt Lake County Metro Jail, pending a pretrial hearing, according to local affiliate KTVX.