Subscribe
to the E-Star!

Community shocked by murder/suicide

Brian Wilkinson

(Updated: Thursday, January 27, 2011, 3:35 PM)

The Madera County Sheriff's Department is investigating a murder-suicide that occurred in Nipinnawasee involving a mother and her 5-year-old daughter.

The mother, Crystal Lynn Lewis, 23, allegedly killed her 5-year-old daughter, Marijane Lyn Lewis, sometime during the night Monday, then walked 2-1/2 miles and jumped 200 feet to her death off the William Sells Jr. Bridge on Old Highway 49.

Lewis and her daughter lived with her parents on Windsong Way off Highway 49, a half-mile south of the Madera-Mariposa county line.

According to the Madera County Sheriff's Department, the child's grandfather noticed a light on in the bedroom shared by the mother and child at about 4:30 a.m. and found the youngster alone in the room with her throat slashed.

After the Sheriff's Department issued an all-points bulletin for the mother, the department received a call from a citizen reporting a body on Old Highway 49 under the bridge. Deputies found the mother's body at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The daughter was a kindergartner at Oakhurst Elementary School.

District Superintendent Glen Reid said that from teacher accounts, Marijane was a good student and a joy to have around.

"Teachers describe her as a sweet girl with a great attitude," he said.

The child's death comes just eight days after the accidental carbon monoxide poisoning of four Oakhurst family members, including Oakhurst Elementary School students Alexis Montoya, 10, and her sister Jayden, 8.

Reid said the deaths of the Montoya sisters was a shock and this recent incident is almost too much to handle.

"We are very concerned about how our students will handle this," Reid said. "We have a great staff and we are just trying to hold it together."

Letters were sent home with students Tuesday from Principal Kathleen Murphy advising parents that the school had suffered another devastating tragedy. "Because of the delicate circumstances surrounding the death... psychologists have recommended that it would be best for parents to talk to their child first."

Attached to Murphy's letter was two pages of information on how to help children cope with grief and loss.

Counselors from Yosemite High School, Cornerstone Counseling and district psychologists were on campus Wednesday to talk with students and help them through the grieving process.

"These people will have an open-door policy for any students or staff members that want to talk with them," Reid said.

Eric Solomon, director of the Oakhurst Boys & Girls Club, said he received calls Monday morning from mothers of Boys & Girls Club members asking if he had heard about the tragedy.

"They all stated that they could not believe something like this could happen, and how could a mother do this to her child?"

The case is under further investigation and authorities do not have a motive for the killing.