By Jack Tomczuk

A 21-year-old man has been charged with murder for the “brutal beating” of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter, who died after being found unresponsive last week inside a South Philadelphia home, District Attorney Larry Krasner said Thursday.

Cases have been opened against two other people who were inside the house at the time, for allegedly lying to the police officers who arrived at the scene, according to prosecutors.

Law enforcement were called just after 8:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 8, to a property near Beechwood and Jackson streets, where they found a badly bruised toddler, Key’Monnie Bean, on the floor of the basement, authorities said. Bean was declared dead a short time later at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The sequence of events leading up to the killing remained unclear Thursday.

“By all indications, she was being a two-year-old,” Assistant District Attorney Ashley Toczylowski told reporters. “What could a two-year-old do to possibly deserve this? The answer is nothing.”

Authorities said Key’Monnie died from injuries sustained during an assault and that her death has been classified as a homicide, though prosecutors are still awaiting a final report from the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Toczylowski said preliminary findings indicate that the girl’s airway was compromised, meaning she could have been suffocated.

A criminal complaint obtained by Metro refers to a hanger and shoe being used in the attack, and detectives wrote that Key’Monnie was choked or strangled, pulled by her hair and dropped on the floor. 

While investigators believe the girl was killed Dec. 8, they are looking into the possibility that she was subjected to prior abuse, according to the DA’s Office.

All four individuals who were inside the Beechwood Street home when she was found were brought into the PPD’s homicide unit for questioning. Three of them – Sean Hernandez, Anthony Lowrie and Alycia McNeill – were arrested.

Hernandez, 21, also known as Raafi Gorham, was charged with murder, child endangerment and other offenses. Prosecutors said he was in a relationship with Key’Monnie’s mother — the only person in the home who has yet to be implicated criminally. Hernandez is not the child’s father. 

Court records show that Hernandez has a lengthy criminal history, and he was on probation at the time of the homicide for a 2023 car theft case in Bucks County.

Hernandez is being held without bail, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Jan. 5. The Defender Association, which is representing him, did not respond to a request for comment.

Lowrie, 21, and McNeill, 20, were each charged with obstruction of justice and related offenses for their statements to officers at the scene.

“Once the homicide unit took over and went through all this, it became apparent that the stories that were given initially were completely fabricated,” Toczylowski said.

She added that Lowrie provided police with a bogus name. Though it was not mentioned at the DA’s news conference Thursday, Lowrie, upon his arrest this week, was also charged with two counts each of aggravated assault, robbery and attempted murder, according to legal documents.

A Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson told Metro that the arrest was related to a Nov. 20 shooting on the 2100 block of S. Norwood Street in South Philadelphia that left a man and a woman hospitalized. The incident was not connected to Key’Monnie’s death, police officials said.

Keywords

Key’Monnie Bean,

Sean Hernandez,

South Philadelphia,

District Attorney,

Larry Krasner