Inset, left to right: Maurice J. Taylor Sr. (Law&Crime/YouTube) and Natalie S. Brothwell (Pima County Sheriff's Office). Background: Authorities at the residence where Taylor and Brothwell killed their kids (KABC).
A mother and father of four in California have been convicted of killing and decapitating their two eldest children. The couple then "forced" their two younger children to "view their siblings' bodies" before locking the surviving kids in their rooms without food for days.
A jury in Los Angeles County on Tuesday found Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr., 39, and Natalie Sumiko Brothwell, 48, guilty on two counts each of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the slayings of their 12-year-old son, Maurice Taylor Jr., and their 13-year-old daughter, Maliaka Taylor.
The parents were also convicted on two counts of felony child abuse under circumstances likely to cause great bodily injury or death, authorities announced.
"This was a monstrous act of cruelty that shattered an entire family," Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement. "Two innocent children were brutally murdered, and their young brothers were left to live through unimaginable horror. The jury's verdict delivers justice for these victims and sends a powerful message: Those who commit such evil acts will be held fully accountable."
As Law&Crime previously reported, prosecutors said Taylor on Nov. 29, 2020, fatally stabbed and then decapitated his two eldest children in separate bedrooms of the family's home. Investigators claimed he then kept the bodies inside the home for five days, repeatedly making his youngest sons, who were 8 and 9 at the time, look at the maimed remains of their older brother and sister.
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The two surviving children were then locked in their rooms where they were kept without food for several days.
Taylor had been working as a personal trainer, with several of his clients taking his classes over Zoom, The Los Angeles Times reported. Those clients became worried about a possible gas leak in the home when he did not contact them regarding a scheduled training session. The clients requested a welfare check.
Police who responded to the home came across a grisly scene.
After finding the children's bodies, which were described as having "lacerations and stab wounds," police placed Taylor under arrest. They had to forcibly remove him from the home by strapping him to a stretcher.
Brothwell was in the house when police arrived, but she wasn't arrested until nearly a year after the kids' bodies were discovered.
"This prosecution would not have been possible but for the tremendous efforts of Deputy District Attorneys Alexander Lara and Kirsten Brown of the Sex Crimes Division, who along with investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Lancaster Station, pieced this gruesome case together and presented it compellingly to the jury," Hochman said.
The defendants are scheduled to return to court for their sentencing hearings on Jan. 13. Both face a maximum possible sentence of life without parole in a state correctional facility.
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