A Seal Beach woman was arrested early Monday afternoon, Feb. 8, for causing the death of her 22-month-old daughter. The Seal Beach Police Department arrested Linda Wilborn, 31, for “assault on a child with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death.”
Her husband was at work at the time the crime apparently occurred on Dec. 17, 2009.
Farrah Emami, spokesperson for the Orange County District Attorney’s office, said the charge was essentially the same as murder, but specific to the crime of child abuse.
According to a press release issued jointly by the Seal Beach Police and the DA’s Office, Wilborn faces a sentence of 25 to life if she is convicted, the same sentence someone would face for a charge of murder.
(The penalties of death and/or life imprisonment without possibility of parole apply only to murder cases with special circumstances.) Emami pointed out that the case is being prosecuted by a senior deputy district attorney in the DA’s Homicide Unit.
The press release said that was the maximum sentence Wilborn could face. However, Emami said there was no maximum or minimum. Wilborn was still being booked into the Orange County Jail when the Sun Newspapers spoke with Emami. As of 8:42 p.m., Monday, her name was not listed on the arrest log page of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Web site.
Wilborn, the mother of four, is also charged with three felony counts of child abuse. The DA’s statement accused Wilborn of rupturing 22-month-old Millicent Willborn’s heart and causing her 22-month-old twin brother, identified only as John Doe, to suffer a skull fracture on Dec. 17, 2009.
Wilborn is being held on $1 million bail. She was scheduled to be arraigned at an undetermined time on Wednesday, Feb. 10 in the Central Jail in Santa Ana.
A child dies
According to the DA/SBPD statement, Wilborn called 911 at approximately 4 p.m., Thursday Dec. 17 to report that the child was unresponsive. According to the police log for that day, 911 received a call at 3:58 p.m. from an address on Anchor Way.
The Orange County Fire Authority apparently tried to give Wilborn CPR instructions at 4 p.m. At 4:03 p.m., the log noted that the Fire Authority was present, but the child still had no pulse. Later, police unit 113 transported the parents to Los Alamitos Medical Center.
According to the DA’s Office, Millicent Wilborn died “due to a ruptured heart despite the life-saving efforts of medical staff. Further examination of the victim revealed that she had fresh and old fractures to her ribs.
An examination of her twin, John Doe, revealed that he had a fractured skull.”
There was no evidence that the other two children were physically harmed.
The authorities took the three surviving children into protective custody while the Seal Beach Police investigated Millicent’s death and John Doe’s injury.
Wilborn was visiting the children at the Orange County Social Services Agency when police arrested her.
