A 7-year-old girl whose body was found in a bathtub at her Van Nuys apartment died of suffocation due to her neck being compressed and due to drowning, according to the medical examiner’s office.
The department identified the victim as Rebecca Castellanos.
Her mother, 37-year-old Graciela Xiomara Castellanos, was arrested Friday, April 11, on suspicion of murder, not long after death, authorities said.
Detectives had not revealed a motive for the killing that happened in the 6800 block of North Sepulveda Boulevard.
A neighbor told KTLA that a man who also lives at the apartment found the girl when he came home and screamed for help. A LAPD spokesman didn’t know his relationship to the suspect or the victim.
Officers went to the apartment at 5:40 p.m. and saw the girl unresponsive in the bathtub and arrested the mother without incident.
As of Monday, Graciela Castellanos was being held at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood in lieu of $2 million bail. She doesn’t have any prior criminal convictions in Los Angeles County, according to court records.
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