Mother’s Boyfriend Held in Death of Daughter, 2

Ranisha Cunningham’s relatives say their demand for justice has been rewarded.

Two months after the 2-year-old girl died mysteriously in her mother’s apartment, Los Angeles police have arrested her mother’s live-in boyfriend, Juan Jiminez, 28, in connection with the death.

Victoria Green, the girl’s grandmother, says she suspected Jiminez of the crime from the day Ranisha died. She waged a personal campaign for his arrest. But investigators told Green they could not pursue any suspects without knowing the girl’s official cause of death. Although a final coroner’s report still is incomplete, initial data indicates the child suffocated, family members said.

“I’m just happy he’s in jail for what he did,” said Angela Cunningham, 18, the girl’s mother.

According to police reports, Cunningham awoke to the sound of running water early on May 20. She said Jiminez had told Ranisha to take a shower after the child wet herself. Cunningham went back to sleep, and woke up 30 minutes later to find her boyfriend cradling the little girl, who was wrapped in a blanket, in his arms, she said. The child had stopped breathing, and Jiminez and Cunningham tried to revive her before calling an ambulance. Doctors at California Hospital Medical Center pronounced the girl dead later that morning.

Police detectives questioned relatives and friends living at the apartment and removed Ranisha’s younger sister, saying she was “at risk of abuse and neglect,” according to a court petition. Cunningham is now in court trying to regain custody of her other daughter, who is 1.

Green, who has 15 grandchildren, said she received threatening phone calls from Jiminez in the wake of the child’s death. She said she became so enraged over what happened that she moved to Sacramento.