|
Arabella and her two younger sisters had been fostered and then adopted by Brian and Leticia McCormack. Deputies responding to a child-in-distress call found Arabella severely emaciated (reported ~40 pounds), with bruising and multiple fractures. She died the same day, August 30, 2022, of complications from prolonged malnutrition and abuse. Brian McCormack died by suicide that day. Leticia McCormack and her parents, Adella and Stanley Tom, were later charged with murder, torture, and child abuse.
A house full of watchers
In August 2022, 11-year-old Arabella McCormack collapsed in a Spring Valley home. She weighed about 40 pounds and had 13 fractures. Her sisters, then 6 and 7, were taken out the same day. Doctors called them near death from starvation. They spent three weeks in a hospital being re-fed.
The girls had been fostered, then adopted, by Leticia McCormack and her husband, Brian, a Border Patrol agent. Leticia’s parents, Adella and Stanley Tom, were part of that household. The civil complaint alleged years of starvation, isolation, withheld medical care, beatings with objects, and torture. Brian killed himself the day Arabella collapsed, as deputies came to speak with him.
Foster children eat what they are given and sleep where they are told. In this house, that dependence was the whole case.
Who was sued
The surviving sisters sued Leticia and Brian’s estate as the alleged perpetrators, and Adella and Stanley Tom with them. The claims were assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and wrongful death as successors-in-interest. Leticia and her parents later faced criminal charges of murder, conspiracy, child abuse, and torture. They pleaded not guilty. That case is still pending.
Church, city, county, school
Leticia was an ordained elder at Rock Church. Kevin Johnstone, the church’s child-abuse investigator and a San Diego Fire-Rescue chaplain, allegedly visited the home more than once, including the week before Arabella died, when all three girls were severely emaciated. The complaint said he made no mandated report. His knowledge was imputed to the church. Rock Church settled for $3 million, paid by its insurer, and denied that its people saw or suspected abuse.
Leticia also volunteered with San Diego Police as a crisis-intervention specialist. The complaint alleged that Officer Lawanda Fisher saw the girls underweight, knew food was restricted, failed to report, and supplied wooden paddles—then replacements—knowing they would be used on the children. The city settled for $10 million.
County Child Welfare Services had referrals as early as 2018 from Arabella’s elementary school: food and water cut off, sleeping on the floor. The lawsuit said interviews were done in front of the McCormacks and the file was closed. The county settled for $10 million.
Pacific Coast Academy ran the girls’ homeschool program. Teachers who saw them were mandated reporters. The academy settled for $8.5 million.
The $31.5 million
Late in 2025 the civil case closed for $31.5 million: $10 million from the city, $10 million from the county, $8.5 million from Pacific Coast Academy, $3 million from Rock Church. The money went into a court-supervised trust for the two surviving sisters. Their lawyer said it would cover a life and would never replace their sister. By then the girls were 9 and 11, with a foster mother, and in better health.
Settlements resolve claims. They are not criminal verdicts.
What remains
This was not a crime no outsider ever saw. School staff, a homeschool program, child-welfare workers, a police volunteer circle, a church safety officer, and a fire chaplain all had contact with the family. The civil case said the signs were visible and the duty to report was not met. Arabella died. Her sisters almost did. The criminal case against Leticia McCormack and her parents is still in court. The trust will only try to keep two girls housed, fed, and cared for after the adults assigned to watch them did not.
| 
