Judge Gives Mother 15 Years to Life in Daughter’s Fatal Beating

A La Puente mother who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for paddling her 5-year-old daughter to death in what she described as an effort to rid the youngster of the devil was sentenced Monday to 15 years to life in state prison.

Deborah Elizabeth Reynolds, 34, had provided key testimony against two other women in the July 1996 death of her 5-year-old daughter, Breeann Spickard. The women, Julia Ann Olivas, 36, and Esther Griggs, 43, were convicted of first-degree murder in Breeann’s death and were sentenced to 26 years to life in prison.

At the sentencing hearing Monday, the dead girl’s uncle read a note from her father excoriating Reynolds.

“My baby girl is gone and I hate you for that,” the father said in a statement read by John Paul Spickard. “What the hell were you thinking when you beat your child over and over again?”

In imposing sentence, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles Horan said Reynolds, if ever paroled, should never have any more contact with her 8-year-old son, who was unharmed by the women but testified against them.

Reynolds and the two other defendants were arrested after authorities found the body of Breeann, who had bled to death.

During the trial earlier this year for Olivas and Griggs, a 45-minute tape-recording was played in which Griggs’ 11-year-old daughter was also beaten only weeks before Breeann died. On the tape, the cries of the 11-year-old, who survived the padding, could be heard amid a chorus of “Jesus Loves Me.”

*

Breeann also took part in the 11-year-old’s beating, according to the tape. When Breeann asked for the beating’s purpose, Olivas was heard telling her, “The devil just doesn’t like you.”

Authorities said that in the fatal attack, two women held Breeann down as her mother initially beat her. Authorities blamed Olivas for instigating the beating, which took place in an apartment in Baldwin Park.

The three woman had gathered there to study the Bible. But things got out of hand with the women taking turns swatting Breeann with a rectangular paddle. Reynolds testified that when Olivas announced that the first beating was insufficient, she was ordered to continue the punishment.

At the women’s trial, Reynolds also testified that Griggs, during the fatal attack, shoved her foot in the girl’s mouth to stop her from crying, and that at another point the 180-pound Olivas jumped on the prone girl’s back to “finish” the killing.

Police officers, receiving reports from Reynolds about the death, went to the apartment, but were told by Griggs that “everything’s fine.”

The girl’s body was discovered 36 hours after she died, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Slavitt, who prosecuted the case. “I think justice was served . . . [but] it was the worst criminal case I’ve seen,” he said.

Slavitt vowed that he would oppose eventual parole for the women. Reynolds’ attorney could not be reached for comment late Monday.