By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH
LOS ANGELES — A young woman testifying in the murder trial of her father and his girlfriend said that she saw her dad repeatedly dropping his girlfriend’s 10-year-old son on the floor and that the boy appeared to be dead when she saw him two days later.
Called to the stand Thursday in the murder trial of her father and his girlfriend, the 18-year-old woman identified in court only as “Priscilla L.” told Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta — who is hearing the non-jury trial — that she remembered seeing the boy, Anthony Avalos, dropped “multiple times” two days before she left the Lancaster home with her sister, three of her half-siblings and her father, Kareem Ernesto Leiva.
Leiva, 37, and his girlfriend, Heather Maxine Barron, 33, are charged with one count each of murder and torture involving Anthony’s June 2018 death, along with two counts of child abuse involving the boy’s half-siblings, identified in court as “Destiny O.” and “Rafael O.”
The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegation of murder involving the infliction of torture. Over Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami’s objection, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office dropped its bid for the death penalty against the two after the election of District Attorney George Gascón, who issued a directive that “a sentence of death is never an appropriate resolution in any case.”
Leiva and Barron now face a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole if they are convicted as charged.
“How was your dad hurting him?” the prosecutor asked Leiva’s daughter about Anthony.
“He dropped him,” Leiva’s daughter responded.
“Did it make you sad?” the prosecutor asked of what she had witnessed.
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Leiva’s daughter — who cried at points during her testimony and said she had…
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