The criminal prosecution remains separate from civil claims that agencies, a school and a church failed to act on warning signs.
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Months after civil claims over the death of 11-year-old Arabella McCormack ended in settlements totaling $31.5 million, San Diego County prosecutors have taken the separate criminal case in another direction: They will seek the death penalty against her adoptive mother, Leticia McCormack.
The two legal tracks address different questions and use different standards. The civil lawsuit filed for Arabella’s surviving sisters accused government agencies, a school, a church and individuals of failing to report or properly investigate warning signs before the child died in August 2022. The criminal case accuses McCormack and her parents, Stanley and Adella Tom, of direct participation in abuse and torture. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty. McCormack is scheduled for a capital trial in August 2027, while her parents are scheduled to be tried together in February, when prosecutors intend to seek life without parole if they are convicted.
The civil settlements illustrate how far scrutiny spread after Arabella’s death. San Diego city and county each agreed to pay $10 million, Pacific Coast Academy agreed to pay $8.5 million and Rock Church agreed to $3 million. A separate agreement involving a police officer was also reported in connection with the litigation. The lawsuit alleged that adults in several settings encountered information that should have prompted stronger intervention or reporting. The organizations’ settlements resolved those civil claims but did not amount to a jury finding that any particular person committed the criminal acts now charged in the pending prosecution.
Records discussed in the civil case described concerns that predated Arabella’s death. NBC 7 reported that school personnel had raised issues involving the family’s control over food and water, bathroom use and sleeping arrangements. The lawsuit alleged that county social workers did not properly investigate two reports and failed to interview Arabella separately from her parents during some contacts. It also accused employees connected to the children’s schooling of failing to report signs they allegedly observed. Those claims became central to the sisters’ argument that more than one safeguard designed to protect children broke down.
Rock Church became another focus because Leticia McCormack had been a volunteer there and held an ordination as an elder. The church has stressed that she was not paid staff, was not a pastor and did not occupy an official pastoral position. It said her elder ordination was completed at another church and transferred to Rock Church in January 2022. After the criminal investigation began, the church suspended and later revoked the ordination. In its statement after the settlement, Rock Church said it remained “deeply saddened” by Arabella’s death and by the injuries and losses suffered by her two younger sisters.
The criminal case, however, centers on conduct prosecutors attribute to the adults inside the family home. Authorities say deputies were called to the Spring Valley residence shortly before 2 a.m. on Aug. 30, 2022, for a child in distress. Arabella was taken to a hospital and died after her condition deteriorated. Investigators suspected child abuse, and the Sheriff’s Department homicide unit took control of the investigation. Leticia McCormack and her parents were arrested in November 2022. The prosecution later moved forward through a grand jury indictment rather than the preliminary hearing that had been anticipated earlier in the case.
Prosecutors allege Arabella and her younger sisters were deprived of food and water, punished physically, denied normal bathroom access, isolated and required to perform exhausting exercises. They say Arabella weighed 48 pounds when she died and was severely malnourished. Prosecutors have also described bruises and healing fractures as part of the evidence they expect to use. The surviving girls, who were 6 and 7 at the time of Arabella’s death, also required medical care for malnutrition, according to reporting on the case. Those factual allegations remain disputed in the criminal proceeding because the defendants have entered not-guilty pleas.
The grand jury indictment gave prosecutors a way to present the allegations as a broader alleged conspiracy rather than a single episode culminating in Arabella’s death. Reports on the indictment said it described hundreds of alleged overt acts involving McCormack, her husband and her parents. One surviving sister testified about rules governing food, water, exercise and movement inside the home. That testimony may become important at trial, but the indictment itself is not a finding of guilt. Prosecutors must establish the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt before any defendant can be convicted.
The role of Brian McCormack, Arabella’s adoptive father, will also remain part of the case even though he cannot be prosecuted. Sheriff’s officials said deputies contacted him near the family home on the day Arabella died and that he died by suicide in their presence. Prosecutors have said they would have filed charges against him had he survived. The criminal allegations against the remaining defendants include evidence that prosecutors say bears on the conduct and knowledge of adults in the household. Because Brian McCormack was never tried, assertions about his alleged participation were never tested through a verdict against him.
The district attorney’s decision to seek death against Leticia McCormack creates another distinction within the case. Prosecutors are not seeking the same punishment against Stanley and Adella Tom, even though the three defendants share multiple allegations arising from the treatment of the children. The Toms face the possibility of life without parole. McCormack’s trial, by contrast, can move to a capital sentencing phase if prosecutors first obtain the convictions and legal findings required under California law. Until then, the death penalty is a punishment prosecutors are requesting, not a sentence that has been imposed.
California’s death-penalty system makes that request especially notable. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order in 2019 granting reprieves to people sentenced to death while he is governor, repealing the state’s lethal-injection protocol and closing the execution chamber at San Quentin. The order did not repeal the death penalty statute or prohibit prosecutors from seeking death sentences. California has not conducted an execution since 2006. A capital judgment entered now could therefore remain in force even though the state’s present executive policy prevents an execution from being carried out.
The criminal and civil cases also leave different records of accountability. The settlement provides money for Arabella’s surviving sisters and closes claims made against the settling organizations, while the criminal prosecution is still headed toward trials that will determine whether the charged family members are guilty. A civil settlement does not substitute for a criminal verdict, just as a criminal indictment does not prove the claims made in the civil suit. Keeping those proceedings separate is particularly important in a case in which allegations about institutional failures, family conduct and the death of a child have developed over several years.
As the case moves into its next phase, Stanley and Adella Tom are scheduled to face a jury before their daughter does. Their February 2027 trial is to be followed by McCormack’s capital trial in August. The defendants have also been reported as due in court for a status hearing on Nov. 17. No jury has yet determined responsibility for Arabella’s death. McCormack and her parents remain presumed innocent of the criminal charges unless and until prosecutors prove those charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
Author note: Last updated September 22, 2026.