Khadiyjah Pendergraph: California woman faces murder charge for drowning disabled daughter, 9, in bathtub
WESTMINSTER, CALIFORNIA: A California mother faces murder charges for allegedly drowning her disabled daughter in a bathtub and leaving her body there for several days, Fox News reports. On Tuesday, November 28, Khadiyjah Aliyyah Pendergraph, 32, was charged with one felony count of murder after her nine-year-old child was found dead in their Westminster apartment on Friday, November 24.
Pendergraph’s daughter Victoria had cerebral palsy, was wheelchair bound, and could not speak. According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Pendergraph was arrested by police in a grocery store parking lot in Aliso Viejo on Friday, November 24, the same day Victoria’s body was discovered decomposing in a bathtub in the apartment they shared.
When did the authorities find out about the incident involving Khadiyjah Pendergraph?
Police conducted a welfare check on the girl just before noon, and when officers forcefully made their way inside the home, they discovered the girl's body with signs of trauma, police said. The girl's father informed the authorities on Friday, November 24, that her daughter was missing and requested a welfare check on the little girl and her mother.
“While police officers are exposed to tragedies on a daily basis, this murder is particularly disturbing, due to the senseless loss of a child allegedly at the hands of her own mother,” Westminster Chief of Police Darin Lenyi said. Prosecutors said that the request followed concerning messages he received from his ex-wife regarding their daughter.
The victim's father tried to pick his daughter on Thanksgiving
According to the District Attorney’s Office, the girl’s father attempted to pick his daughter up as scheduled on Thanksgiving, but the apartment door was locked and no one answered the door. He later raised the alarm to the police. Pendergraph claims she tried to take her life at least once in the days following her daughter’s death, prosecutors said.
"While families across America sat down to Thanksgiving dinner with their loved ones, this little disabled girl’s lifeless body was left to rot in a bathtub after being drowned by her own mother," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said, adding "Words simply do not exist to express the utter heartbreak knowing this little girl could not even scream for help as her mother pushed her underwater and cut her life so tragically and so unnecessarily short."
The mother, if convicted, can face a maximum sentence of 25 years to life. She made her first court appearance on Tuesday, November 28, but did not enter a plea, although her defense was assigned to the public defender’s office, the district attorney’s office said.