Mom, Ex-Boyfriend Get Life In Prison For Torturing And Murdering Her Daughter

LOS ANGELES, CA — A woman and her former live-in boyfriend who were convicted of first-degree murder and torture in connection with her 7-year-old daughter's death in 2021 were sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Sadler called the victim, identified by authorities as A'Miya D., a "defenseless girl" and said he didn't understand how someone could force Sriracha hot sauce down her throat.

"She died knowing that her mother chose her boyfriend over her," the judge said just before imposing the sentences on Ida Helen Brockman, 34, and Malachi Xavier Whalen, 33, for the Sept. 9, 2021, death of her daughter.

Jurors convicted Brockman and Whalen of one count each of first-degree murder and torture, along with finding true the special circumstance allegation of murder involving the infliction of torture.

Brockman was also convicted of child abuse resulting in death, while Whalen was found guilty of assault on a child causing death.

Shortly before being sentenced, Whalen told the judge, "I am sorry. I am not saying I did anything physically to A'Miya ... I'm sorry that she's gone. It is a loss."

He maintained that "you don't know what actually occurred."

In his victim impact statement, the girl's paternal great grandfather, Vernon Harrison, told the judge, "Every time I think of A'Miya, I ask myself if I missed the signs of Ida and Malachi's actions prior to September 8th and could I have done something to ... prevent what they did to her?"

"Ida and Malachi have caused our family distress, depression and other emotions that I (am) unable to begin to express before you today," he said. "Your honor, we won't be able to experience A'Miya's warm smile and her dreamy eyes as she would have developed into a teenager and then into a young lady. But we will forever remember the last three and a half years, seeing and hearing the malice and deceit that emerged from the heart of someone our grandson had trusted as family."

He said his family prayed that the two would "receive the maximum legal sentence."

The judge also heard from statements read in court on behalf of two other family members, including the victim's aunt, Crystal Ferguson, who said the girl was "so senselessly and cruelly taken from us."

In her closing argument during the trial, Deputy District Attorney Kelly Kraetsch called the crimes "unthinkable acts" that happened while the girl was briefly living with her mother and her mother's then-boyfriend in a 370-square-foot apartment in Hawthorne.

The prosecutor said documentation of the torture began with a cell phone recording by Whalen six days before the murder that inadvertently showed extensive bruising to one side of the girl's face. Brockman can be heard asking the girl why she doesn't listen and calling her "rebellious," and Whalen can be heard asking why she doesn't listen to her mother.

The prosecutor alleged that the two confined her with her ankles in handcuffs that are not even used by law enforcement and kept her in the bathtub.

"Both defendants intended to torture and kill A'Miya because she was rebellious, because she wouldn't listen," the prosecutor told jurors.

"There was time to save her," Kraetsch said. "If they had called 911, they could have saved her ... They chose to let her die."

The prosecutor said the two instead dragged the girl into the kitchen and left her for dead behind a large cardboard TV box in the kitchen, after Sriracha hot sauce was forced down the girl's throat in the bathroom, causing her to vomit her stomach contents and then breathe them back in.

Whalen had called the girl's father and told him to come straight from work, and he eventually, unknowingly, wound up being "inches way" from his daughter while she was dead behind a large television box in the kitchen and was being instructed to touch certain items in the residence, the deputy district attorney said.

The prosecutor said the two subsequently drove the girl to the hospital, where she was officially pronounced dead after hospital staff "did everything they possibly could to save her."

Deputy District Attorney David Zygielbaum told jurors in his rebuttal argument that a deputy medical examiner who performed an autopsy on the girl found 58 areas of injury.

He told the panel that the couple needed "someone to take the fall for it" and tried to frame the girl's father for her death, saying that Brockman subsequently blamed Whalen in a discussion with an undercover jailhouse operative following her arrest.

Brockman's attorney, Tonya Deetz, countered, "She didn't torture her daughter. She didn't abuse her daughter. It was Mr. Whalen who did that."

She told jurors that the girl was Brockman's "little angel" and said there was "no question that she loved A'Miya," contending that "Ms. Brockman was abused, controlled and isolated."

"... There is evidence inconsistent with guilt," she said of the case against Brockman. "I don't think these facts can be reconciled with guilt."

She said "it is 100% clear" that Whalen's DNA was found on the bottle of Sriracha hot sauce and that the prosecution had proven who killed the girl.

Of the prosecution's contention that the girl could have been saved if authorities had been notified earlier about what happened to her, she said, "Prove it."

Whalen's attorney, Gregory McCambridge, called the girl's death "a horrible, senseless tragedy."

He described his client as a junior college student at the time who deals with ADHD and asked for help with his homework, saying that he was "not a criminal mastermind" but was being portrayed to be "like Lex Luthor and Hannibal Lecter."

"... It's pretty clear Mr. Whalen wasn't around that much," he said. "This started when he was gone most of the time."

Whalen's attorney said there was no evidence that his client was abusive to children, arguing that Brockman provided "very specific descriptions of beating A'Miya" while speaking to the undercover jail operative after her arrest. He said there was no evidence that Whalen had inflicted physical violence on his girlfriend.

McCambridge argued that his client could have been found guilty of lesser crimes with which he had not been charged, saying he had been "overcharged."

"What he's not guilty of is intending to murder or torture A'Miya. The evidence doesn't support that," Whalen's attorney argued.

In his final argument for the prosecution, Zygielbaum countered that the only benefit of the child for the couple was for tax purposes and that "each injury was a choice, each injury was designed to cause pain and suffering."

The two were arrested the day after the girl's death and have remained behind bars since then.

After the jury's verdict, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement, "This was a case that shook us all to our core. The brutal murder of A'Miya, a defenseless 7-year-old girl, at the hands of her own mother and her mother's boyfriend is nothing short of horrific. We are grateful that the jury returned a guilty verdict and held both defendants accountable for their cruelty."

By Terri Vermeulen Keith, City News Service