ANTELOPE VALLEY : Area Plagued by Child Abuse Tallies 7th Death

The number of child abuse deaths in the Antelope Valley--running three times the county average--rose again this week as the coroner’s office confirmed the seventh such homicide since mid-1991 and sheriff’s deputies began investigating a potential eighth case.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office concluded that 6-month-old Karanina Hernandez of Lancaster died July 12 of a brain injury caused by violent shaking. The infant’s mother and her spouse are under investigation by deputies, but no charges have been filed.

Sheriff’s detectives also are investigating the death Saturday of 14-month-old Nathan C. Aguilar, who had been taken from his family in a remote area east of Lancaster because of suspected child abuse in March but returned to them two days later, deputies said.

The two cases are the latest additions to a growing list of confirmed or suspected child abuse deaths in the Antelope Valley. The Antelope Valley had 6,347 children reported abused in the fiscal year ending in mid-1992, about 50% above the county’s average for the area’s population.