A mother was arrested after police found a 9-year-old girl dead in a home in Westminster.
Neighbors said the mother and her daughter lived in the apartment complex off Goldenwest street.
They said the mother kept to herself and the daughter was in a wheelchair, so they didn’t see her come out often.
Police said they received a call from a concerned family member Friday afternoon, and when they came to check the home, that’s when they found the 9-year-old child lifeless and with obvious signs of trauma.
Authorities said the mother, 32-year-old Khadiyjah Pendergraph, was their only person of interest, and they found her about 30 minutes south, at a shopping center in Aliso Viejo.
“It just can’t be, it’s like a nightmare. It’s a nice neighborhood. This is, you know, all the neighbors play together. I have four boys, and my boys are always playing with all the children around the block and I just cannot believe it. I’m in shock,” Evelyn Gonzalez, a neighbor, said.
“All I can think is maybe being sad or overwhelmed or something like that. But, in any event, I don’t know. It’s just shocking to hear,” John Byrne, a Westminster resident, said.
Court documents show that Pendergraph had filed for a restraining order from the child’s father in August of 2016 for “domestic violence with child.”
Her daughter was 2 years old at the time.
In the order, she said the child has cerebral palsy and wrote that she “is unsafe” with the father and she “will keep her safe at all times.”
One neighbor here tells me that she thought the daughter possibly died from an accident like falling and was shocked to hear police say murder.
Detectives are still investigating and ask anyone with information to contact Orange County crime stoppers.
Source: NBC Los Angeles