South LA mother pleads not guilty in 4-year-old daughter’s death

A woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder and other charges stemming from her 4-year-old daughter’s death following an alleged assault in the family’s South Los Angeles home nearly two years ago.

Akira Keyshell Smith, 36, was ordered May 4 to stand trial on one count each of murder, torture, and assault on a child causing death involving the Aug. 11, 2020, death of her daughter, Eternity.

The criminal complaint alleges that Smith was convicted in 2016 of assault with a deadly weapon and in 2014 of injuring a spouse, cohabitant, fiance, or boyfriend.

In a May 3 court hearing, the girl’s 18-year-old brother testified that his mother kept “slapping and slapping” Eternity that day, and that he also saw his mother choking his sister and “kicking her while she was on the floor.”

The young man — who said he told his mother to stop — testified that his mother eventually went to her room while he checked on his sister, who was on the floor in the hallway. He said he subsequently told his mother that the girl’s stomach was moving in a weird way.

“My mom told me to get her some food. She didn’t want any of it,” the girl’s oldest brother testified, adding later that his mother also told him to get some water for her.

“We called the ambulance to come and hurry up,” he said.

Another of the girl’s brothers, who is now 10, said he didn’t remember so well what happened to his sister.

“What did you see your mom do? Was there hitting?” Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami asked.

“Definitely hitting,” the younger boy testified, adding that he believed that there was also kicking and slapping as his sister cried.

When asked why he didn’t try to stop his mother, the boy responded, “What if I was next?”

The boy testified that the girl was “just laying there, not crying anymore” and “wasn’t moving at all” after his mother stopped the alleged attack.

He acknowledged that he would sometimes play-fight with the girl, and that she had fallen at one point from a bunk bed probably about a month earlier.

Defense attorney Kimberly Greene asked the boy if his mother would sometimes seem sad and whether he ever saw his mother taking medication. He responded that she sometimes seemed sad and that she had pills.

Matthew Holguin, a firefighter/paramedic with the Los Angeles City Fire Department, testified earlier this month at the hearing that the girl was pale, cold, and wet when he responded to the home about 5:12 p.m. that day, and that family members said they had poured water on the girl in an effort to wake her up.

“It just seemed very calm in the house,” Holguin told the judge, noting that it was unusual under the circumstances.

Holguin said firefighters were informed by the mother that the girl was last seen walking in the hallway when she just collapsed. Paramedics tried unsuccessfully to revive the girl, who was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead at 5:41 p.m. that night, Holguin testified.

When asked if he heard Smith saying, “Oh, God,” and repeating her daughter’s name, he said he wouldn’t describe her demeanor as emotional.

Officer Elizabeth Armendariz of the Los Angeles Police Department, who was summoned to the hospital, testified that she observed the girl with multiple contusions to her face and “visible vomit in her hair and coming out of her mouth” after she had already been pronounced dead.

The officer said she subsequently spoke to the girl’s mother, who reported that she had put the girl in a time-out after she urinated on herself while in the garage.

The woman told police that she subsequently allowed the girl back into the house and heard her children playing together before one of her sons informed her that the girl had fallen, according to the officer.

Smith began to cry after being approached at the hospital and indicated that she thought people were trying to blame her for the girl’s death, the officer said under cross-examination by Smith’s attorney.

Coroner’s investigator Lauren Diaz testified that she also spoke that day with the girl’s mother, who reported that it was stressful being the sole provider for her four children, including an infant son, and that she had regained custody of them in March 2020 after being released from prison.

The girl’s mother said she was under a doctor’s care for mental health, and that she initially believed that the girl had vomited for attention while in a time-out, the investigator told the judge.

Smith told the investigator that her children alerted her that the girl had collapsed or fallen, and that her middle son was known to play rough with the girl, according to the investigator.

Diaz said she saw the little girl’s body in the hospital, and described “numerous injuries” she saw after the girl had already been pronounced dead.

The girl died of blunt force to her torso in what the Los Angeles County coroner’s office categorized as a homicide.

Smith was arrested at 2:30 a.m. the following day by the LAPD’s Juvenile Division, and has remained behind bars since then.

Officers took the girl’s three siblings into protective custody and released them to the Department of Children and Family Services, according to the LAPD.

Smith has remained behind bars since her Aug. 12, 2020, arrest.

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