Mother arrested for double homicide after husband allegedly decapitated, displayed their children’s bodies: Sheriff

A mother is under arrest 10 months after her son and daughter were found murdered and decapitated in their Los Angeles-area home, authorities said.

On Sept. 28, Natalie Brothwell, 44, was apprehended in Tucson, Arizona, where she had been living, and she now faces charges of two counts of murder and two counts of felony child endangerment in connection to the deaths of her son, Maurice Taylor Jr., 12, and daughter, Maliaka Taylor, 13, late last year, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

Brothwell was being held on $1 million bail and is expected to be extradited to California.

On the morning of Dec. 4, 2020, law enforcement discovered Maurice and Malaka dead in Brothwell’s Lancaster, California, home.

According to police, Brothwell’s husband and the father of the victims, 35-year-old Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr., allegedly fatally stabbed and decapitated the children five days earlier, on Nov. 29, KTLA reported.

Two younger children, boys ages 8 and 9, were present in the home after the killings and forced to look at the deceased boy and girl’s bodies that were left on display, prosecutors said.

Taylor, a former personal trainer, was arrested and charged for the deaths of the two children. He remains behind bars in lieu of $4.2 million bail. KNBC reported the court raised questions about Taylor’s mental competency and temporarily suspended criminal proceedings against him shortly after his arrest. If convicted of the charges against him, he faces over 50 years in prison.

Officials have not said what role Brothwell allegedly may have played in the murders of their children or why she wasn’t arrested last December.