Home / Crime and Justice / Parents get life sentence for monstrous child murders
Parents get life sentence for monstrous child murders
4 Feb
Summary
- Couple sentenced to life without parole for 2020 murders.
- Surviving sons forced to view siblings' decapitated bodies.
- Parents convicted of first-degree murder, child abuse.
A Lancaster couple, Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr., 39, and Natalie Sumiko Brothwell, 49, received life sentences without parole on Monday for the 2020 murders of two of their four children. The judge described the crime as "monstrous," emphasizing the extreme cruelty and trauma inflicted on the couple's two younger sons.
Prosecutors stated that the parents killed their 12-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter on November 29, 2020, inside their Lancaster home. The two younger sons, then 8 and 9, were allegedly confined and forced to view their siblings' decapitated remains for days without food.
Authorities were alerted to the situation when Taylor, a personal trainer, missed scheduled online Zoom meetings. Deputies found the children's bodies, each showing signs of sharp-force trauma, in separate bedrooms. Taylor was arrested days later, while Brothwell was apprehended nearly a year later in Tucson, Arizona.
