Apr. 10, 2026 6p
(WGTD)---Oddities in the defendant’s statements to others and a new take on the appearance of the body of the victim—a six year-old girl-- led authorities to charge the girl’s mother Friday with 1st Degree Intentional Homicide.
Bond for 33 year-old Christina Torchia was set at $1 million. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Apr. 22nd.
Layla Stahl of Somers appeared to have died in her sleep in 2022. The manner of death was initially listed as undetermined.
But investigators took a fresh look at the case earlier this year. Witnesses were re-interviewed and the physical evidence—including photos of the scene—were re-examined.
The victim’s father appeared stunned to learn that the cause of death had been listed as undetermined. Torchia had been telling people from the start that Layla’s death was due to a brain aneurism, based on what she claimed she’d been told by a pathologist.
In her reinterview this year, Torchia claimed that Layla’s father had confessed on two occasions to smothering her.
The father denied it, and subsequently passed a lie detector test.
In the criminal complaint, an investigator is quoted as saying the purplish color of the girl’s lips and one ear, along with a partially-clenched fist, and fingers bent inward on the other hand, were all indicative of someone having been smothered.
In another oddity, Torchia told others of a dream Layla purportedly said she had of her father putting a pillow over her head.
Torchia is already serving a prison sentence on a conviction for trying to arrange to have a witness killed.
A judge last month signed off on a request by the state to amend the death certificate to list the manner of Layla's death as homicide rather than undetermined.
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