This Wednesday, November 19, an American couple was convicted of two counts of qualified homicide and two counts of child abuse, after killing and decapitating their 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, in November 2020.
Maurice Jewel Taylor, 39, and Natalie Sumiko Brothwell, 48, face life in prison without the possibility of parole and a consecutive sentence of six years and four months in state prison, for sentencing on January 13.
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge found the couple guilty.
“This was a monstrous act of cruelty that destroyed an entire family. Two innocent children were brutally murdered and their younger siblings were left to live in unimaginable horror”Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement.
The crimes took place on November 29, 2020, when Taylor and Brothwell stabbed and decapitated their daughter Maliaka, 13, and son Maurice, 12, at the family home in Lancaster, Los Angeles County, California, according to court documents.
The couple then forced their other two children, aged 8 and 9, to view the bodies, before confining them to their rooms without food, according to the prosecution.
The alert to the authorities was given by clients of Maurice Jewel Taylor, a personal trainer, who stopped responding to messages and missed an online training session, via the Zoom application, during the covid-19 pandemic.
“I knew they weren’t out of town. They didn’t have money to travel,” one customer told Los Angeles Times em 2020.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Division detectives investigating the crime scene found the decapitated children in separate rooms the following Friday.
Taylor was arrested on December 4, 2020 and charged four days later. At the time, Brothwell was only considered a person of interest, having been arrested and charged only in September 2021.
“The jury’s verdict brings justice to these victims and sends a powerful message: those who commit such evil acts will be held fully accountable,” disse Hochman.