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HAWTHORNE (CNS) - A Hawthorne woman -- who is charged along with her boyfriend in her 7-year-old daughter's death -- pleaded not guilty today.
The girl's mother, Ida Helen Brockman, 30, is charged with one count each of murder and child abuse resulting in death. She is due back Oct. 20 at the Airport courthouse in Los Angeles.
The woman's boyfriend, Malachi Xavier Whalen, 29, is awaiting arraignment Wednesday on one count each of murder, torture and assault on a child causing death.
The girl was identified in the criminal complaint only as “Amaiya D.''
Hawthorne police officers responded Sept. 9 to Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in connection with a possible child abuse/child death call, according to Deputy Grace Medrano of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Information Bureau.
Investigators learned that the girl had been brought unresponsive to the hospital's emergency room by her mother and the mother's boyfriend, according to the sheriff's department.
Authorities said the girl had suffered multiple injuries that were inconsistent with statements made by the woman and her boyfriend.
The investigation -- in which sheriff's homicide detectives and the District Attorney's Office have also been involved -- subsequently led police officers and detectives to an apartment in the 3000 block of El Segundo Boulevard, where the girl lived with her mother and the mother's boyfriend, and where she allegedly suffered her injuries, Medrano said.
Brockman and Whalen have remained behind bars since they were arrested Sept. 10 by Hawthorne police, jail records show.
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