Family of Lancaster mother charged in infant's death asks prosecutors to revisit case

LOS ANGELES - The family of a mother charged for the death of her 7-month-old son is asking prosecutors to revisit her case in hopes they would find the mother did not intentionally hurt her child.

Thursday night a living room in the Crenshaw District was filled with a tight-knit family. 

Everyone was there, except Anaiyah Perry who was arrested last week and charged with one count each of murder and assault on a child for the death of her baby boy.

“She knows in her heart that she didn’t do anything to intentionally harm her child at all,” her sister Sarina Williams told Fox 11 reporter Leah Uko.

“She’s like this nurturer and she’s just a loving type of person.”

The incident happened on November 2018. Then 20-year-old Williams, her boyfriend, and their two sons were living with his parents in Lancaster. They called police after they said the boy choked while drinking his bottle.

After a 10-month investigation, the coroner found Royal Marshall died of blunt force neck trauma and determined it was a homicide.

Williams mother, Sara Williams, said she felt the findings were incomplete.

“There’s other things that can cause that. We’ve been doing research ourselves on the baby birth and stuff you know? Things like that that leads up to the same thing.”

Sarina said her sister and her boyfriend gave the same story, that the incident was a frantic accident.

“She took him downstairs so the father could feed him and she went back upstairs to care for her oldest child. Several minutes later the baby was drinking his bottle and choked,” she continued.

“That’s when she came downstairs after he called her. And they both panicked. They attempted to call 911. 911 was busy.”

The district attorneys office confirmed the father was cleared of all charges, but would not elaborate on why. 

Williams’ family hoped the same would be done for her.

“I just think that they rushed to judgment too fast without properly looking into other facts. Things that she said, they twisted her words.”

A GoFundMe account has been set up for the family’s lawyer fees.

Williams and her boyfriend’s 2-year-old son is in custody of the boyfriend’s mother who lives in Lancaster. 

The Department of Child and Family Services would not comment on the custody of the boy or the case.