Mother Sent to Prison in Killing of Daughter, 16

A woman who murdered her teen-age daughter after the girl was sent out to buy drugs but came home empty-handed and under the influence, was sentenced Friday to six years in state prison.

Defense attorney Charles Lloyd said the entire case demonstrates the “devastating, ugly” pervasiveness of cocaine and other drugs throughout society.

“That’s what this is all about,” he said.

Maureen Belle, 32, had pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to voluntary manslaughter in the stabbing death of her 16-year-old daughter, Natasha Blacklock, in their MacArthur Park-area apartment.

Originally, Belle reportedly said that on June 2 she gave her daughter $50 to buy a $32 bus pass. A violent argument ensued when the girl returned with the pass but without any change.

Relatives had supported Belle’s contention that she tried to get her daughter off the drugs that were readily available along Alvarado Street, a block from the pink stucco apartment building where Belle, a single parent, was raising Natasha and three younger children.

But even before Belle entered her plea, prosecutors were contending that both mother and daughter were cocaine users, an accusation that was confirmed Friday by Belle’s lawyer, Lloyd.

“Both the mother and the daughter were using drugs,” Lloyd said. “She sent her daughter out to get drugs and the daughter didn’t bring the drugs home but was high.”

During the fatal quarrel that followed, two of Belle’s three younger children “watched their mother stab their sister” with a butcher knife, Lloyd said.