Whittier Girl, 5, Found Dead

A 5-year-old girl was found dead in her family’s second-floor Whittier-area apartment living room early this morning after her mother was awakened by sounds, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

The victim’s 12-year-old sister called for help on the 911 emergency number, but paramedics and sheriff’s deputies answering the call at the apartment building in the Candlewood Country Club area found the child already dead, apparently of strangulation or suffocation. An autopsy is pending to learn the cause of death and whether the child, whose name was not released, was molested.