Calif. man gets life in prison for throwing 4-year-old daughter off a cliff

A man convicted of throwing his 4-year-old daughter off a cliff near Los Angeles 15 years ago was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for her murder, prosecutors said.

A Los Angeles County jury found Cameron Brown, a 53-year-old former airline baggage handler, guilty of first-degree murder in May. Two previous juries had been unable to reach verdicts after trials in the years since the girl's death.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George Lomeli sentenced Brown to a mandatory life term in prison, said Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Brown's defense lawyers had maintained that his daughter, Lauren Sarene Key, accidentally fell to her death in the upscale seaside community of Rancho Palos Verdes.

But prosecutors said Brown threw the child off the cliff out of hatred for her mother, and because he was tired of paying child support.

The jury agreed Brown had murdered his daughter for financial gain, which was one of the so-called special circumstances that prosecutors charged in the case.