Hawthorne woman charged with torturing and killing her 7-year-old daughter
A Hawthorne woman and her boyfriend have been charged with murder and child abuse in the death of the woman’s 7-year-old daughter.
Ida Helen Brockman, 30, and Malachi Xavier Whalen, 29, were arrested Friday.
For the record:
11:53 a.m. Sept. 16, 2021An earlier version of this story referred to Ida Helen Brockman as “an El Segundo woman.” Brockman’s home address is in Hawthorne.
They were each charged with one count of murder and one count of child abuse, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Brockman was also charged with one count of torture.
When the pair brought the girl, Amaiya Dawson, to the hospital Sept. 9, she was unresponsive, the Sheriff’s Department said in a press release.
Officials at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital suspected the girl, who sustained multiple injuries, had been abused and called the Hawthorne Police Department.
Police officials spoke to Brockman and Whalen at the hospital and concluded that their statements were inconsistent with the girl’s injuries.
Homicide investigators with the Sheriff’s Department later went to their apartment, in the 3000 block of El Segundo Boulevard. The two were arrested soon after by Hawthorne police.
They are being held in the L.A. County jails, each on a $2.6-million bond, and are scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 23.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
