California parents decapitated 2 kids, forced younger ones to look at their mangled bodies

A mother and father were convicted of decapitating two of their children and then making their two younger sons view their siblings’ headless bodies.

Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr. and Natalie Sumiko Brothwell were found guilty Tuesday of murdering their daughter, Maliaka, 13, and son Maurice Jr., 12, in the family’s home in Lancaster, California, in November 2020.

After the savage killings, they made their two younger sons, ages 8 and 9, look at their older siblings’ bodies before locking them in their bedrooms without food or water “for several days,” according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

“This was a monstrous act of cruelty that shattered an entire family,” District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement Tuesday.

“Two innocent children were brutally murdered, and their young brothers were left to live through unimaginable horror.”

The children’s bodies and the surviving brothers were only found after firefighters responded to a gas leak at the house on Dec. 3, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.

The parents were found guilty of two felony counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and two felony counts of child abuse.

They are scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 13.