Tot’s Killer Gets Long Prison Term : Court: Wayne Yoshisato will not be eligible for parole for at least 30 years. He murdered his ex-girlfriend’s daughter.

SANTA ANA —  A Huntington Beach laborer was sentenced to 53 years to life in prison Friday for sexually assaulting and beating to death his former girlfriend’s 14-month-old daughter.

Orange County Superior Court Judge William Froeberg handed down the sentence during an emotional hearing packed with relatives and friends of the girl and the man convicted of killing her, 31-year-old Wayne Yoshisato.

The toddler’s uncle tearfully asked the judge for the maximum sentence for the death of Felicia Lynn Grunbaum.

“My brother and our family will never be able to cherish those special occasions or moments that would have occurred during Felicia’s life,” said Richard Grunbaum, a captain with the Huntington Beach Fire Department. “Her first day in kindergarten, her first school play . . . her high school prom, her graduation, her wedding day.”

The speech caused Felicia’s mother, Pepper Purvis, to run from the courtroom sobbing. Felicia’s father, 29-year-old Steven Grunbaum who is divorced from Purvis, said afterward that his daughter’s death is a warning to all parents to be constantly vigilant.

“If I had been, we wouldn’t be here today, and I wouldn’t have gone to my first funeral,” Steven Grunbaum said. “I tell parents now to hold onto their children and to hold onto them forever.”

The judge said Yoshisato’s actions showed a “high degree of cruelty, viciousness, and callousness.” Froeberg said medical evidence showed that Felicia was beaten and sexually assaulted at least twice before she died on July 10, 1990, and that the assaults would have caused her “extreme pain, and to cry out.”

Throughout the hearing, Yoshisato sat doubled over, with his head nearly touching the counsel table and turned away from a news camera.

His sentence was 10 years shy of the maximum.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood said she was pleased that Yoshisato will spend much of his adult life behind bars, especially because he has never expressed remorse for his crimes. He will be eligible for his first parole hearing when he is 61, she said.

But defense attorney William Kopeny maintained his client’s innocence. He called the sentence “harsh” and said he plans to appeal.

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Yoshisato was convicted on July 28 of first-degree murder, four counts of sexual assault and felony child endangerment for beating Felicia to death during a rape with a foreign object.

The unemployed laborer who raised dogs had been living for a short time with Purvis after a “whirlwind relationship.”

During the trial, Kirkwood told jurors that Yoshisato disliked the toddler’s crying and became increasingly impatient and abusive during the few weeks she and her mother lived with him.

According to a probation department report, Yoshisato said he found a child’s crying “very irritating,” and admitted that he had occasionally spanked Felicia. But he accused Purvis of assaulting and killing the girl.

Police investigators, however, concluded that Yoshisato had attacked the girl when her mother left her alone with him. Yoshisato’s roommates told police they heard him hitting the girl, asking her if she “wanted more” the night before she died, court records show.

A witness told police he overheard Yoshisato say he hated the girl and was going to kill her.

According to a county probation report, Yoshisato had a reputation for being quick-tempered and physically abusive toward women and small animals, once throwing his pregnant wife out of a car, kicking a pregnant dog, and throwing small animals against a wall at a pet shop where he once worked.

Yoshisato’s case gained some publicity when it was used as a basis for a state Supreme Court decision in June, 1992, to allow for the death penalty for people convicted of killing while raping with a foreign object.

Prosecutors said they did not pursue the death penalty in Yoshisato’s case partly because Yoshisato had no prior record of convictions for violent crimes.