Mother Changes Plea, Denies Endangering 4-Year-Old Girl

A Sun Valley woman whose blind and deaf 4-year-old daughter weighed only 17 pounds when police investigators found her lying unattended in a converted garage pleaded not guilty Monday to a felony charge of child endangerment after learning that prosecutors recommended she be sent to state prison.

Paula Lynn Dever, 23, had originally pleaded guilty to the charge April 21, but San Fernando Superior Court Judge Terry O’Rourke allowed her to change her plea during the sentencing hearing. O’Rourke told Dever at the hearing that he planned to send her to state prison. A June 4 trial date was set.

Dever was arrested Feb. 6, one month after police found her daughter, Melanie Woods, choking on her own mucous and gasping for air in an unheated garage, according to court documents. The girl, who is mentally retarded, has multiple sclerosis and suffers from epileptic seizures. She requires constant care, the documents said.

Police had entered the garage-- where Dever, her boyfriend and her daughter lived--during a narcotics investigation, and found the girl lying on sheets soiled with cat feces, court records said.

Dever denied that her daughter was lying uncovered and said the girl “has always been thin,” according to a sentencing report. The girl was treated for malnutrition and dehydration at a local hospital, the report said.