A Pearl Harbor woman charged with trying to choke her 3-year-old daughter to death Sunday allegedly said she did it because "voices were telling her that they were going to burn and kill the kids," according to a police interview with the child's father.

City prosecutors yesterday charged Elly M. Rivera, 26, with attempted second-degree murder. She was held in lieu of $150,000 bail at the police cellblock pending an initial court appearance today in District Court.

Paramedics responded to a call to the family's home at Pearl Harbor naval base housing Sunday night and took the girl to Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center in critical condition. Police yesterday said the child's condition had improved to serious.

A police affidavit released yesterday said the suspect's husband, Jesse Y. Rivera, said he was at the family's Hooper Place home Sunday night when at 8:25 p.m. his son ran down the stairs yelling the toddler was "not doing good."

Jesse Rivera asked his son what happened. The boy replied that "mamita" did something to the baby, the affidavit said.

Rivera went upstairs and found his wife sobbing in a bedroom bathroom. She asked him to check on the toddler and make sure she didn't stop breathing, Rivera said in his statement to police.

Elly Rivera kept repeating that voices told her "they would kill and burn the kids" and that she choked her daughter "because she didn't want them to suffer," Jesse Rivera told police.

Rivera saw his daughter's face was very red, her lips were dry and pale, and she was breathing quickly with occasional convulsions, the affidavit said. His son told him that his mother tried to choke the baby, the affidavit said.