Girl’s Body May Have Been Mutilated to Obscure Identification

Prosecutors contend that the body of 5-year-old Marquishia Shanee Candler was mutilated in an attempt to prevent her identification, a defense attorney in the murder case said Monday.

David Karlson said he was told by Deputy Dist. Atty. Dennis Short that the girl’s hands were maimed, apparently after death, in an effort to keep fingerprints from being taken.

Short declined to comment on the case other than to say that “some interesting things” can be found in an autopsy report by the San Bernardino County coroner’s office. Coroner’s officials said the report will not be made public until today, at the earliest.

Karlson’s remarks came outside the courtroom where the dead child’s aunt, Renee Lloyd, 32, and grandmother, Bertha Toombs, 49, pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against them.

Lloyd is accused of murdering the girl on Sept. 22, corporal injury to a child on May 8, 1991, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Toombs is accused of being an accessory to Marquishia’s murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

There have been reports from neighbors and medical officials that Marquishia and one of her brothers may have been the victims of abuse while they, other siblings and cousins were living at Toombs’ home in Ontario during the spring of 1991.

Officials say the conspiracy charges stem from the women’s initial story that Marquishia had disappeared during a shopping trip to the Fox Hills Mall on Sept. 22. In the days that followed, Toombs appeared on television asking for help in finding the girl.

When police questioned Toombs and Lloyd again a week later, the women admitted that their first story was a lie and said Marquishia had drowned accidentally in a bathtub at Toombs’ home. The women said they panicked after Marquishia died and that Lloyd dumped the girl’s body beside a lonely stretch of road in the Mojave Desert, 20 miles east of Victorville.

Lloyd directed police to where the body was found, and both women were arrested.

Lloyd and Toombs were released two days later when the district attorney’s office said it did not have enough evidence to hold them. However, prosecutors said at the time that the women had not been exonerated.

Last Friday, the women were rearrested in Los Angeles. While declining to be specific, Short said Friday that the rearrests were made on the basis of evidence from the girl’s body and interviews with “her siblings, other family members and acquaintances.”

Short and Karlson said the autopsy report did not determine the precise cause of death, but Karlson said water was found in the girl’s lungs. “There were abrasions and contusions that might indicate trauma,” Karlson said after being briefed privately by Short. In addition, he said, “There were attempts made to keep fingerprints from being taken from the body, but I don’t know exactly what they were.”

Lloyd and Toombs, both clad in green jail coveralls, were arraigned at 1:45 p.m. Friday before Municipal Judge Peter H. Norell. Karlson, a private attorney, was assigned to represent Lloyd, and Deputy Public Defender Carolle Lemonnier was assigned to represent Toombs.

Both defendants were ordered to return to court on Nov. 19 for a pre-preliminary hearing.