Recriminations Over a Fatal Plunge

Four-year-old Natalie Dalili hit the second-floor roof of the Torrance Marriott hotel with such force that her pink-and-white tennis shoes were ripped off her feet.

Her mother, Roya Dalili, hit so hard that both of her feet, her hips, her pelvis, an ankle and a knee were shattered.

Natalie was killed in the plunge from the 10th-floor hotel window. Her mother lived.

Seven months later, Roya Dalili, still confined to a hospital bed, is accused of murder.

Should she be sent off for a lengthy stay in prison if found guilty? Or does she need help?

Roya Dalili has told friends she doesn’t remember being out on the ledge. When she last appeared in court, arriving Aug. 25 in an ambulance and dressed in a hospital gown, she erupted in sobs as the charges were read. She pleaded not guilty.

Police and prosecutors say they are not without some sympathy for her. But with her preliminary hearing set for Tuesday in Torrance Municipal Court, they nonetheless insist she must pay for what they say she did. They want her to be sentenced to prison or a state psychiatric facility.

“The daughter is totally innocent here,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Alex Karkanen said, adding, “There is no justification for killing that child. None. Period.”

Defense attorney James Epstein, on the other hand, said before a court hearing earlier this month that he wants his client to remain free while undergoing extensive counseling.

The two sides have held talks aimed at settling the case without a trial, and intend to have further discussions. Meanwhile, the child’s death has ripped apart two families seeking to understand the incomprehensible: How could this have happened?

Mother and daughter plunged out of the hotel window on the afternoon of March 3.

Since then, Roya Dalili’s family has claimed that her 40-year-old husband, Nader, abused her, suggesting that anguish over the relationship drove her out onto the ledge.

“There is a truth that vindicates Roya,” said her brother, Hamid Arabzadeh, an environmental engineer.

He declined to provide details but repeatedly referred to his sister as a victim. He also made it clear that much enmity has developed between his family and Nader Dalili’s.

Police and prosecutors said they have uncovered no documented instances of abuse. And, Karkanen said, “the nature of the abuse is in question and certainly these allegations are being made after the child was killed.”

Nader Dalili, an executive in his family’s garment business, declined requests for an interview. Since March 3, he has sued Roya twice, once for divorce, and once alleging the child’s wrongful death. Through his attorney, he flatly rejected the claim of abuse.

“It’s a desperate effort to deflect the attention of the public or the jury or the judge onto someone who has no blame for this whatsoever,” attorney Gregory F. Stannard said.

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In an Oct. 9 letter to Arabzadeh, Stannard says his client wants a public apology. The letter adds, “This deliberate, vicious and desperate campaign of disinformation must stop, and stop now.”

The loss of Nader Dalili’s daughter, Stannard said, has left Dalili “shattered” and “uncomprehending.”

Arabzadeh said he and his relatives also are struggling to make sense of the nightmare.

“A piece of our hearts has been taken away,” he said. His voice broke as he said, “That baby, the most beautiful thing in my life, is gone.”

By all accounts, Natalie Dalili was an uncommonly charming little girl. She had dark eyes and dark hair and a bashful smile.

She attended the Peninsula Montessori School in Rancho Palos Verdes. Administrator Claudia Krikorian said Natalie was a “sweet, very sweet, quiet little girl--and very attached to her mother.”

A class photo shows Natalie clutching a satiny red cloth, a security blanket cut from her maternal grandmother’s nightgown. She was never without it. “It carried her mother’s scent, her perfume,” Krikorian said.

Roya Dalili volunteered at the school one day a week and had inquired about becoming a Montessori instructor, Krikorian said. “Loving, kind, patient,” Krikorian said of Roya Dalili.

Yet something in her life--or in her mind--was evidently amiss.

“Something was wrong,” said Brenda Lee, 31, of Rancho Palos Verdes, a friend whose son attended the same Montessori school. “Yet there was nothing I could catch.”

In January, Roya Dalili slashed her wrists. The cuts were superficial, Torrance Police Det. Dave Nemeth said.

In February, she went to a doctor and asked him to kill her, Nemeth said.

On March 3, Roya took Natalie out of school early. They went to her mother’s house, then to the Torrance Marriott.

There, according to Nemeth, Roya used a credit card to rent a room for $126. A clerk gave her a room on the sixth floor. She said she wanted one on a higher floor.

The clerk gave her the key to Room 1002.

After getting the key, mother and daughter proceeded first to the top floor, the 17th, where Roya Dalili asked two maids how to get to the roof, Nemeth said. Believing she was seeking a play area for the child, they directed her to a playground below, he said.

Instead, Roya led Natalie, her only child, to Room 1002.

There, according to police photos, she took off her daughter’s blue corduroy jacket and hung it on her stroller, which she had parked by the door to the room.

She took off her own red jacket. She laid it on a chair by the window. She also took off her tortoise-shell glasses and put them on the chair.

She kicked off her black shoes, which were found under a round table next to the chair.

She did not leave a note, Nemeth said.

Police believe she stepped out onto the ledge and gathered up her daughter before plunging.

Although she jumped barefoot, Roya Dalili took her black purse with her. It is not clear why.

Karkanen, the prosecutor, said authorities believe the mother was holding the daughter as they went off the ledge because hotel detectives, whose office roof they landed on, heard a single thump--or, perhaps, two thumps so close together as to be virtually indistinguishable.

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Although the mother and daughter landed about 15 feet apart, the laws of physics dictate that they would fall at the same rate even though Natalie weighed 37 pounds and Roya about 125, Nemeth said.

The child was pronounced dead on arrival at Little Company of Mary Hospital, Nemeth said. Her mother drifted in and out of a coma for weeks. She is still undergoing surgeries, the most recent Oct. 9.

Krikorian said she spoke recently with Roya Dalili, who told her she doesn’t remember jumping. “She only remembers the pain before,” Krikorian said. “The pain must have been so severe, so deep, she had to take her daughter with her to a place where there was no more pain and suffering.

“I can’t imagine taking a child’s life,” Krikorian said. “But if you sat down with Roya, neither could she. The pain must have been so severe.

“And the worst punishment for her is, she survived.”