A California couple has been sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison for what prosecutors described as a monstrous act of cruelty against their four children in Lancaster.
According to The Blaze, 39-year-old Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr. and 49-year-old Natalie Sumiko Brothwell were convicted of first-degree murder and child abuse after the 2020 beheading of their 12-year-old son, Maurice, and 13-year-old daughter, Maliaka. Prosecutors said the pair then forced their surviving sons, ages 8 and 9, to look at the mutilated bodies and locked them in a bedroom for days without food.
This was a monstrous act of cruelty that shattered an entire family, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement following the conviction. Two innocent children were brutally murdered, and their young brothers were left to live through unimaginable horror, he added.
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. Taylor and Brothwell received life sentences without the possibility of parole, reflecting the gravity of the crimes and the enduring trauma inflicted on the surviving children.
The childrens maternal grandmother insisted in a statement read to the court that her daughter was innocent and accused Taylor of ruining so many lives. Outside the courthouse, a close family friend struggled to describe the horror, asking, How do you put into words that two children were beheaded?
This stays with all of us. This is never going to wash off, the friend said, underscoring the lasting scars on the extended family and community. Another woman, identified only as Ellen, said she had urged Brothwell for years to leave the relationship because of domestic violence, but Brothwell stayed.
She was doing what we were raised to believe. You stand by your man, Ellen added. You have a family, and you raise your children.
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