Couple Sentenced in Daughter’s Death : Courts: Palmdale man and woman get terms of 15 years to life in the fatal beating of their 4-year-old girl.

A Palmdale man and woman convicted of beating their 4-year-old daughter to death were sentenced Wednesday to 15 years to life in state prison, ending what prosecutors called one of the Antelope Valley’s worst child abuse cases.

Lancaster Superior Court Judge Charles Peven sentenced Richard A. Leach, 25, and Michelle K. Hunter, 24, under the terms of a plea bargain. The two, who lived together sporadically, pleaded no contest to a second-degree murder charge Aug. 29 in exchange for the dismissal of 14 other felony counts.

“It was a terrible case. What they did to that little girl--somewhere, some way--they will suffer accordingly,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Chesley McKay said. The couple will be eligible for parole in about seven years but can expect to serve about 20 years in prison, McKay added.

By the time paramedics were called to the couple’s Palmdale mobile home late on June 11, the body of Deedra Hunter had already begun to stiffen from rigor mortis, indicating the girl had been dead a few hours, according to court records.

Authorities determined that the girl had “suffered severe blows and had been severely bludgeoned causing contusions, cuts and numerous human bites from her face all the way down to her ankles on both sides of the body,” according to a Los Angeles County Probation Department report on the case.

On June 10 and 11, witnesses later told police, screams and banging noises were heard coming from the bedroom where Hunter kept her daughter and 2-year-old son, James. The evening of June 11, Hunter came out of the bedroom with the girl’s battered body and told other residents of the mobile home that Deedra had stopped breathing.

According to the probation report, Leach told sheriff’s deputies he sometimes hit, bit and threw the children, but blamed Hunter for the injuries the girl sustained prior to her death.

Hunter at one point admitted striking the children in the past and said Leach had done so too, but later recanted that story, the report said.

The couple have remained in custody since their arrest in June. In addition to the murder charge, Hunter and Leach each originally faced seven charges alleging torture of the girl and abuse, corporal injury and assault of both children.

The couple could have faced life in prison without parole, or the death penalty under the original charges.

The probation report said the boy, Hunter’s son with another man, has been placed with his natural father. When taken from Hunter’s home in June, the boy also had bruises.