Alfredo Mu\u00f1oz initially said he tripped over a baby gate while holding Tilly, according to an autopsy report from the L.A. County medical examiner. <\/p>\n
Tilly died Nov. 10. The autopsy found a \u201cconstellation of injuries that cannot be explained by a single low-level or short-distance accidental fall,\u201d including blunt head trauma and a severe spinal cord injury.<\/p>\n
At 14 months old, Tilly had \u201crepeated inflicted trauma,\u201d the medical examiner found.<\/p>\n
Tilly was the latest in a long line of children who have died<\/a> while under the supervision of the Department of Children and Family Services, or DCFS. <\/p>\n The agency said in a statement that it was \u201cdeeply saddened to learn of the tragedy involving 14-month-old Tilly S.\u201d but said state law prohibits officials from commenting further.<\/p>\n At a news conference Wednesday in downtown L.A., Servin remembered her daughter as a bubbly toddler with piercing blue eyes who wriggled with delight at the sight of Elmo.<\/p>\n Servin, who lost custody of her daughter when the infant was about 5 months old, said she started to believe Tilly was in danger after she was sent a photo shortly before she died.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a weird feeling,\u201d Servin said. \u201cWe got one picture of her on her birthday, Aug. 29. She looked very sucked up and skinny and just small \u2014 and she had a bruise on her forehead.\u201d<\/p>\n During a December court hearing, L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Rosenberg told a judge that Tilly was repeatedly deprived of food and had suffered multiple broken bones \u2014 allegedly at the hands of her father and stepmother.<\/p>\n \u201cThis little girl had a broken tibia, not once but twice, a broken foot, two broken ribs,\u201d Rosenberg said, according to a transcript of the court hearing.<\/p>\n Rosenberg said Tilly ultimately died of a skull fracture.<\/p>\n The couple also took videos of the alleged torment, Rosenberg said. The prosecutor accused the father of gagging the young girl with a spoonful of cinnamon, according to the transcript, and starving her in sickening fashion, leaving the toddler \u201cemaciated,\u201d according to the transcript.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s even video of Alfredo holding food in his hands. I can\u2019t tell if it\u2019s a sandwich, chicken fingers, whatever it is, [he is] gleefully eating it, pointing it to her as she tried to grab it,\u201d Rosenberg said, according to the transcript.<\/p>\n Courtney Guerrero, the slain child\u2019s grandmother, wears a \u201cJustice for Tilly\u201d T-shirt.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Servin said Tilly was placed with the couple after DCFS removed the girl from her care after an alleged positive fentanyl test. She denied taking the test and said she was unclear why she lost custody.<\/p>\n Tilly briefly lived with her grandfather, Servin said, before DCFS placed her with her father, despite the 2021 child abuse case.<\/p>\n In that case, police found methamphetamines and pill bottles within reach of two children inside the Mu\u00f1ozes\u2019 residence on Pine Avenue in Long Beach, according to a pretrial investigative report. Police recovered two firearms and roughly two grams of methamphetamine during a search, records show. Neither child was physically injured, records show. Alfredo and Kelly Mu\u00f1oz pleaded no contest to the felony child abuse charges. <\/p>\n Tilly\u2019s placement came despite warnings from a DCFS dependency investigator, according to a March 5 email sent to Servin. The investigator said he was concerned about Alfredo Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s history of drug use, which he believed made the father \u201cincapable of providing regular care of the child,\u201d according to the email referenced in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n \u201cThe father\u2019s history of substance abuse endangers the child\u2019s physical health and safety and places the child at risk of serious physical harm,\u201d the investigator wrote.<\/p>\n Alfredo Mu\u00f1oz has multiple prior arrests for burglary, assault, vehicle theft and weapons and drug offenses as well as resisting arrest, according to court records. He was charged with attempted murder as a juvenile and tried as an adult, though probation reports did not show how that case was resolved. He was last released from state prison in 2023, according to a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe father should have been disqualified from taking in Tilly Servin because he has a rap sheet longer than a novel,\u201d said Brian Claypool, an attorney representing Servin. \u201cThis is the guy that L.A. County DCFS said, \u2018You can take care of a 14-month-old child.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit alleges DCFS was well aware of the couple\u2019s \u201cviolent history\u201d as the agency had opened a case related to the earlier charges against them. <\/p>\n Claypool has represented multiple families of children who were killed while they were under DCFS supervision, including the infamous cases of Anthony Avalos<\/a> and Noah Cuatro<\/a>, two young boys who were tortured by their parents. Those cases settled for $32 million and $20 million, respectively.<\/p>\n \u201cThey catastrophically failed in this case, and they\u2019re going to pay the price,\u201d Claypool said of DCFS. \u201cThis is as bad as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of Tilly Servin, a toddler who prosecutors believe was tortured to death in Long Beach last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[90992,90993,90995,1436,3409,733,2798,9342,90994,6314,418,41330,48,52,51,1846,47,50,49,90991,57324],"class_list":["post-194815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alexis-servin","tag-alfredo-munoz-jr","tag-brian-rosenberg","tag-case","tag-child","tag-child-abuse","tag-couple","tag-daughter","tag-dcfs","tag-father","tag-history","tag-kelly-munoz","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawsuit","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-tilly-servin","tag-transcript"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772113697_431_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n