Police Look at Separate Deaths of 2 Babies : Tragedies: One infant was shot; the other reportedly died of massive head injuries.

Police were investigating the unrelated deaths of two children Tuesday--a 5-month-old Santa Ana boy who was shot in head as his father cleaned a revolver and a 14-month-old Huntington Beach girl who may have been beaten.

The baby boy was shot about 7:10 p.m. at an apartment complex in the 700 block of East Chestnut Avenue in Santa Ana. A helicopter airlifted the child to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he was pronounced dead slightly more than an hour after the shooting.

Details of the incident were sketchy, but Santa Ana police said it appeared that the boy’s father was cleaning a pistol in the living room of their apartment when it fired once, hitting the child in the head. They declined to release the names of the child or his parents.

A witness, Gabriela Soto, 7, said she was playing with a friend downstairs at the three-story apartment house when she heard a shot. She said she ran upstairs and, through an open front door, saw the father holding the baby against his chest.

“ ‘Oh, no, I killed my baby!’ ” the youngster quoted the father as saying.

Police cordoned off a portion of East Chestnut for more than an hour as they looked through the apartment and questioned witnesses and bystanders. Officers said that other people besides the mother and father were inside the house at the time of the shooting.

Medical center doctors pronounced the child dead about 8:15 p.m. A woman, apparently the boy’s mother, who was waiting in the emergency room, held her hands over her face and cried, “What am I going to do with all his little clothes?”

In Huntington Beach, investigators questioned friends and family members about the 14-month-old girl who died a few hours before dawn Tuesday of massive head injuries.

At about 3 a.m., firefighters rushed to a home on the 8800 block of Anthony Drive, a quiet cul-de-sac, in response to a report of a toddler who had stopped breathing.

Police said Felicia Lynn Grunbaum was pronounced dead a few minutes later at Humana Hospital-Huntington Beach.

Neighbors said they were awakened by sirens and the glare of police car lights. Lt. Ed McErlain said police were called to the scene by firefighters because of “suspicious and unexplained injuries” to the toddler. He declined to elaborate.

“The first thing I thought about was the baby. Oh, that poor baby,” said a neighbor

who saw rescuers carry the child from the home. She declined to give her name. “I saw her little legs hanging out. . . . (Investigators) were here for hours. They took the baby’s crib out of the house. They were even going through the trash.”

Although police declined to reveal details of the investigation, they said arrests might be made as early as today.

The baby’s mother, 19-year-old Pepper Ann Grunbaum, lived at the house with her boyfriend and another male friend, according to police. Neighbors said Grunbaum also has a young son.

A man who answered the door identified himself only as Grunbaum’s roommate and said he had talked to police. “A child passed away here last night,” he said. “The police are investigating. I’m not going to say anymore.”

Times staff writers Matt Lait and Marla Cone and correspondent Jon Nalick contributed to this report.