California man kills baby daughter by throwing her off steep cliff after stabbing pregnant wife multiple times
PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA: A man reportedly threw his one-year-old daughter "over a steep cliff into a ravine" after stabbing his pregnant wife multiple times. He also had a rollover crash off Highway 74, according to police.
Responding deputies found the child dead on the scene and later identified the father as 49-year-old Adam Slater, who is a suspect involved in both a domestic violence incident in Indian Wells and the death of the child, KESQ reports.
Palm Desert Sheriff's officers responded to a reported stabbing on Washington Street in Indian Wells at 8.30 am on May 7.
According to a police release, investigators "found a female victim with multiple injuries caused in a domestic violence incident. The female victim was transported to a local hospital and is in stable condition."
Speaking to KESQ, the victim's uncle Chris Grome noted how Slater was "being combative."
"He attacked her and tried to stab her several times in the stomach and the throat. She fought him off and tried to protect herself," he said, adding that the victim and Slater are married and that his niece is six months pregnant with her second child.
"Right now, it’s painful... Painful," said Grome. "Everybody’s hurting pretty bad."
Just half an hour after deputies identified Slater as the suspect in the stabbing attack, his vehicle overturned near Vista Point on Highway 74, according to investigators.
"Witnesses went to the aid of the occupants of the overturned vehicle several hundred feet from the roadway," the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said in a statement. "The driver then ran to the passenger side of the vehicle, where he stabbed a male who had assisted getting a young girl from the vehicle. The suspect then took the girl from the arms of the male he stabbed. Multiple witnesses saw the suspect take the child and throw her over a steep cliff into a ravine. The suspect then fled on foot into the canyon."
After a short foot chase, Slater was apprehended and detained. Meanwhile, the child was located but found dead at the scene.
Devastated family members identified the child to the outlet as "a little joy" named Madalyn.
Ashley Grome, the victim in the stabbing attack, who is Slater's wife and Madalyn's mother, is now fundraising online to conduct a proper funeral for her daughter.
"My daughter was the absolute love of my life and she meant everything and more to me," she wrote on the fundraising page. "Everything I did and everything I will do for the rest of my life is for her. She was beautiful and her smile was contagious, even after a bad day, she always cheered me up. She was taken from this world way too soon."
Meanwhile, Slater was taken to a local hospital to treat injuries from the collision.
There is a listing on the California Megan's Law website for a registered sex offender in Palm Desert named Adam Slater. According to KESQ, family members of the victims identified him to be the alleged attacker.
According to the website, Slater was convicted in 1995 for "sexual penetration of victim with a foreign object by force." However, he was released just two years later in 1997.
That said, the Sheriff's Department Central Homicide Unit is continuing the investigation. Deputies said Slater would be booked for murder upon his release from the hospital.