California parents who decapitated 2 children, forced other kids to see bodies learn sentence

A pair of California parents were sentenced Monday to multiple life sentences after decapitating their 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, then forcing their two younger children to look at the bodies.

Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr., 39, and Natalie Sumiko Brothwell, 49, were found guilty in November of two felony counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances after fatally stabbing their 13-year-old daughter, Maliaka, and 12-year-old son, Maurice, inside the family’s Lancaster home on Nov. 29, 2020. 

The couple then forced their two younger sons, ages 8 and 9, to view their siblings’ beheaded bodies and remain confined in their bedrooms without food for several days.

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Firefighters found Maliaka and Maurice’s bodies five days after their deaths while responding to a possible gas leak, according to a report from FOX11 Los Angeles.

Officials with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office told the Los Angeles Times Taylor and Brothwell received the maximum sentence of two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, plus six years in state prison.

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The two younger children were placed under a 10-year protective order, according to a report from KTLA.

Following the couple’s conviction, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman called the killings a “monstrous act of cruelty.”

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“Two innocent children were brutally murdered, and their young brothers were left to live through unimaginable horror,” Hochman wrote in a statement.

Lancaster, Calif., is about 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.