Local News in Brief : 3 Charged in Death at Day-Care Home

A couple who ran an unlicensed Lomita day-care home and their 19-year-old daughter were charged Friday with felony child endangerment and with violating the state’s Health and Safety Code in connection with the strangulation death last November of a 16-month-old girl.

Robert and Linda Zieger and their daughter Laura were arrested shortly after the Nov. 14 death of Michele Heasley, who was one of seven small children being cared for at the Zieger home.

All three Ziegers have been free on $3,000 bail during an investigation by the district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department. They are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in South Bay Municipal Court.

Robert Zieger, 48, and Linda Zieger, 47, were reached by phone Friday but declined to comment.

Investigators reported that the family routinely cared for about half a dozen children at their home on West 262nd Street, although they were not licensed by the state Department of Social Services.

Laura Zieger told paramedics that she was at home alone with the seven children when she found the girl not breathing, about an hour after she had left her napping in a bedroom. Doctors at Torrance Memorial Hospital Medical Center said they found abrasions on the girl’s neck, indicating that she may have been strangled.

The county coroner’s office ruled the death a homicide, but Deputy Dist. Atty. Rod Leonard said Friday that there is no evidence to charge the Ziegers, or anyone else, with murder.