Missing Oxnard girl's mother appears in court to face murder charge

An Oxnard mother appeared in court Friday to face a murder charge in the alleged killing of her missing 3-year-old daughter. 

 

Mayra Chavez, 26, did not enter a plea to the second-degree murder charge or the two others she is facing when her case was called in Ventura County Superior Court. The other charges the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office filed against her on Wednesday include felony torture and felony assault on a child causing death, court records show. 

An attorney with the Ventura County Public Defender’s Office, which was appointed to represent Chavez in her legal proceedings, requested that the woman’s arraignment be continued to 9 a.m. March 1 in Courtroom 13. 

Authorities believe the missing girl, Kimberly Lopez, was killed on June 22, 2015, based on a monthslong investigation that began in September 2016. That’s when Ventura County Children and Family Services filed a missing-child report with the Oxnard Police Department. 

Read more:Ventura County DA charges parents of missing Oxnard girl with murder

About two years before filing the report, county personnel received information that something might be wrong. They made several attempts to visit her at the family home but they could not find her. 

Omar Lopez, the girl’s father, was also charged this week with second-degree murder as well as a child endangerment offense. He appeared in court on Thursday for an arraignment, which was also continued. 

The parents have been held in county jail for civil contempt since October 2016 for failing to tell authorities where Kimberly was or what happened to her. 

Kimberly Lopez in an undated photo provided by Oxnard Police Department.

Under questioning in August, Chavez told investigators that Kimberly hit her head while the mother tried to change her pants. The parents told detectives the girl had two seizures after the injury and they did not seek medical treatment. They said she died that same night and they drove her body to Tijuana, Mexico. 

The girl’s remains have not been found, prosecutors said. 

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Attorneys for both parents requested the arraignments be continued because the defendants have other matters coming up in court. They were referring to perjury charges prosecutors filed against the pair in August. 

Previously, the parents told authorities Kimberly was taken to Mexico to live with a man who Chavez said was like a stepfather to her. Detectives tracked that man down, and he said he knew nothing of the girl. 

Chavez and Lopez have pleaded not guilty to the perjury charges. Both remain in jail custody with bail set at $6 million each for the two cases against them.