By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH
The parents of a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl who were found decapitated at the family’s home in Lancaster were sentenced Monday, Feb. 2, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa M. Strassner ordered Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr., 39, and Natalie Sumiko Brothwell, 49, to serve life terms consecutively, saying the two children were “helpless” and that the couple forced their surviving two children to “look at the aftermath” of the Nov. 29, 2020, stabbings and decapitations of Maurice Maliaka.
Brothwell, in court, said she “did not murder my children” and had tried to save them, but the judge said she found no evidence of “genuine remorse” from the defendants and that there was instead “silence where accountability should be.”
In a statement read in court on her behalf, the victims’ maternal grandmother said Taylor had “ruined so many lives,” while maintaining that her daughter is “innocent.”
The judge rejected a motion for a new trial from Taylor’s attorney, Christopher C. Chaney, saying that the verdict was “fully supported by the evidence.”
Taylor and Brothwell were convicted last November of two counts of first-degree murder.
The two were also found guilty of two counts of child abuse. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office noted that prosecutors had proved the couple forced their younger sons, then ages 8 and 9, to view their siblings’ bodies and to remain confined in their bedrooms without food for several days.
The victims’ bodies were still inside the family’s home in the 45000 block of Century Circle when authorities arrived five days after the killings, officials said.
The county Fire Department had received a call about a possible gas leak and immediately notified deputies after finding the two children dead inside the home.
Taylor has remained behind bars since he was arrested Dec. 4, 2020. Criminal proceedings against him were temporarily suspended after a doubt was declared about his mental competency.
Brothwell was taken into custody in Tucson, Arizona, in September 2021 and returned to Los Angeles County the following month. She has remained behind bars since then.