CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : BAKERSFIELD : 2 Guilty of Starving Daughter to Death

A jury has found a Ridgecrest couple guilty of second-degree murder in what the prosecutor called “a monstrous crime”--starving their 2-month-old daughter to death. A Kern County Superior Court jury convicted James Lowell Lee, 38, and Tonnette Rae Lee, 29, of murdering Janelle Lee on Dec. 8, 1988. After the verdicts were read, Judge Roger Randall placed the couple in custody and scheduled sentencing for March 19. The Lees had been free on $15,000 bail each. Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry P. Pelton said the infant’s weight fell from 5 pounds, 6 ounces at birth on Oct. 1, 1988, to 3 pounds, 5 ounces when she died nine weeks later. An autopsy revealed that the girl had no food in her system. Even her body fat was gone, the last fat a body uses to stay alive, a doctor testified. “It was an extreme case of malnutrition,” Pelton said.