Ojai Mother Accused of Starving Infant Daughter to Death

Her tiny ribs visible through gaunt skin, 2-month-old Rachael Catherine Rother stopped breathing a week ago while inside her mother’s trailer north of Ojai.

Neighbors who started CPR and paramedics who arrived minutes later could not revive her.

On Tuesday, authorities charged the baby’s mother, Pamela Karen Rother, with murder and felony child endangering, accusing the 31-year-old woman of starving her daughter to death.

“The autopsy appeared to indicate there was no nutritional intake,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Larry Robertson, who is supervising the investigation. The baby “was severely starved with no fat on the body at all.”

Rother, who lives in a small collection of homes on a hillside above The Wheel bar on Maricopa Highway, was arrested by sheriff’s deputies late Sunday night inside the bar.

She appeared in Ventura County Municipal Court on Tuesday for an arraignment, which was postponed three weeks at her attorney’s request.

Wearing a blue jail uniform on her small frame, Rother looked haggard and showed little emotion. In her one statement to the court, she asked for permission to “be let out or have some special arrangements so I can arrange a funeral for my daughter.”

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Municipal Court Judge Vince O’Neill set Rother’s bail at $250,000--the standard amount for murder suspects--but said defense attorneys could raise the question of bail and funeral arrangements later. Rother is being held in Ventura County Jail.

Ventura County coroner’s officials have not yet listed an official cause for Rachael’s death pending the results of further blood and tissue tests.

Those tests, said senior Deputy Coroner Jim Wingate, will be used to rule out the possibility that a digestive disorder kept the infant from absorbing food.

Sheriff’s detectives, meanwhile, are investigating the possibility that drug use by Pamela Rother played a role in the baby’s death.

Robertson said detectives are looking into the possibility that Rother purchased drugs instead of food for her child, and that drug use made her paranoid and irrational.

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“We believe that drugs may have been a significant factor,” he said.

Neighbors say they believe that mental problems caused Rother to neglect the 2-month-old. They say Rother stopped bottle-feeding the baby after accusing a neighbor of poisoning the infant formula.

Rother, the neighbors say, then tried to breast feed the child, but was unable to provide it with milk.

“Somebody had brought her up a three-month supply of formula,” said an acquaintance of Rother’s who did not want to be identified. “But she ended up throwing it out . . . .”

After the baby died, Rother did not show signs of grief. “I don’t think she realized really what had happened,” the acquaintance said.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Pat Buckley, who served a search warrant at Rother’s trailer Tuesday, described the interior as “pretty filthy” and the result of “abject poverty.”

Deputies seized several bags full of Rother’s property from the trailer, but would not disclose the contents. Buckley did say, however, they found no food for the infant.

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Rother, who has no job and receives welfare payments, had moved into the trailer in November. She gave birth in the trailer the morning of Dec. 21, with only a 22-year-old neighbor to help her until paramedics arrived.

Rother also has a 9-year-old daughter who lives in Ventura with Rother’s parents.

The 22-year-old neighbor who lives above Rother said she called the county Public Social Services Agency in mid-January after growing alarmed at Rother’s erratic behavior.

On Jan. 12, two sheriff’s deputies broke into Rother’s trailer after she refused to answer the door, and took the then 3-week-old baby and mother to the Ojai police station and hospital to be evaluated.

A doctor at the hospital said the baby appeared “within normal weight limits and in relatively good health,” Robertson said. The social worker released the child to Rother’s custody that evening.

The neighbor said she does not understand why social workers gave the baby back to Rother, or why they did not visit Rother’s home later to follow up, despite at least one other call from a worried neighbor.

“Maybe if somebody had come when somebody called that baby would be alive,” the woman said. “I know that’s true.”

James Isom, director of the Public Social Services Agency, would not comment on specifics but said his department is reviewing its response to the case.

“I need to know the whole chain of events, what our involvement was, what services were offered,” Isom said.

“It’s just a tragic incident that needs to be thoroughly examined before I just pop off and say something.”