A Hawthorne woman and her boyfriend are facing murder and other charges stemming from the death of the woman’s 7-year-old daughter, authorities announced today. The girl’s mother, Ida Helen Brockman, 30, is charged with one count each of murder and child abuse resulting in death, while her boyfriend, Malachi Xavier Whalen, 29, is charged with one count each of murder, torture and assault on a child causing death.
The girl was identified in the criminal complaint only as “Amaiya D.” The two are set to be arraigned Sept. 23 at the Airport Courthouse, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Brockman and Whalen have remained behind bars in lieu of $2 million bail each since being arrested Friday by Hawthorne police, jail records show. Hawthorne police officers responded last Thursday afternoon to Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in connection with a possible child abuse/child death call, according to Deputy Grace Medrano of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Information Bureau.
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Investigators learned that the girl had been brought unresponsive to the hospital’s emergency room by her mother and the mother’s boyfriend, according to the sheriff’s department. Authorities said the girl had suffered multiple injuries that were inconsistent with statements made by the woman and her boyfriend.
The investigation — in which sheriff’s homicide detectives and the District Attorney’s Office have also been involved — subsequently led police officers and detectives to the “crime scene” at an apartment in the 3000 block of El Segundo Boulevard, where the girl lived with her mother and the
mother’s boyfriend, Medrano said. Anyone with information about the case was asked to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau at 323 890-5500 or Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS or to use the website www.lacrimestoppers.org.
