The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case of a Whittier-area man convicted of his 6-month-old daughter’s beating death.
Eduardo Orozco was found guilty of second-degree murder and assault on a child causing death and was sentenced in March 2018 to 25 years to life in state prison.
Orozco was home alone with his daughter, Mia, on the night of May 10, 2013, and called the baby’s mother at work to tell her their daughter was not breathing, according to Deputy District Attorney Michael DeRose.
The mother rushed home, an ambulance was called and the baby was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead of massive blunt force trauma to the abdomen, the prosecutor said.
An autopsy showed that Orozco’s daughter had suffered four broken ribs, two punctured lungs, a lacerated heart and internal bleeding, along with healed rib fractures, according to trial testimony.
On Feb. 28, a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that jurors in Orozco’s trial should not have heard his confession to the baby’s mother, who had been told by a police officer that she could get a full explanation from her boyfriend after he maintained to investigators that he had not hurt the girl.
Orozco initially told his girlfriend that he “didn’t do anything,” but subsequently confessed that he had killed their baby after she asked him why he had refused to take a polygraph test, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.