Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Authorities Suspect Abuse in Death of 22-Month-Old Girl : Violence: Doctors find swelling, hemorrhaging of toddler’s brain. Area was rocked by string of seven child slayings a year ago.

Authorities said Friday they are investigating the death of a 22-month-old Palmdale girl as a possible child-abuse homicide, potentially the first such Antelope Valley case in months after the region was rocked by seven child slayings a year ago.

Simone Kosloff, who lived in an east Palmdale apartment complex with her mother and the mother’s boyfriend, was pronounced dead early Thursday afternoon at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Hollywood after being flown there by helicopter from a Palmdale hospital.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said the child’s death is being investigated as a possible homicide. Detective Jerome Beck of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said doctors found swelling and hemorrhaging of the child’s brain.

Officials would not speculate on a specific cause of death until an autopsy is performed this weekend. But brain-swelling and hemorrhaging are characteristic of shaken infant syndrome, in which a child is shaken so violently as to cause brain injury and subsequently, death.

According to Beck, the family said the baby was injured when she fell from a crib onto a carpeted floor and was unresponsive when found at about 10 p.m. Wednesday by the mother’s boyfriend. He tried to revive the baby and called 911. The girl was rushed to Palmdale Hospital Medical Center in critical condition.

Authorities identified the mother as Kaye R. Kosloff, 20, of Palmdale. Authorities did not identify the boyfriend, although neighbors said they knew him as Tony. Beck said no one was in custody Friday pending results of the autopsy.

The couple could not be reached for comment, but neighbors said the mother appeared to take good care of her daughter but had had fights with men in the past, including her current boyfriend. And one neighbor said the child slept on a bed, not in a crib.

From June, 1991, to July, 1992, at least seven child-abuse homicides occurred in the Antelope Valley, about three times the county average for the area’s population at the time. The parents or guardians of five of the seven children were users of methamphetamine, a drug that sometimes triggers violent behavior.