News

Man Accused of Throwing Baby Daughter Over a Cliff After Stabbing Pregnant Wife

NewsPublished May 9, 2020
By Devan McGuinness
Madalyn Payton SlaterJustice for Madalyn/GoFundMe

A man from California is accused of throwing his baby daughter over a cliff less than an hour after allegedly stabbing his pregnant wife. Forty-nine-year-old Adam Slater from Palm Desert has been arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon, according to a press release from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

The horrific events unfolded in the early morning Wednesday, when Slater reportedly met with his wife.

Slater met with his wife, Ashley Grome, that day, according to News Channel 3. She told the news station that she was in her car at a church parking lot, along with their 1-year-old daughter, Madalyn Payton Slater. She met with her husband there, and that’s when the day took a very gruesome turn.

News Channel 3 reports Ashley was “was brutally attacked outside a local church.”

Ashley, who was also reportedly six months pregnant with her second child, claims she was attacked by her husband in the parking lot, where he stabbed her multiple times. She was found by police officers, who were dispatched to respond to a stabbing report around 8:30 a.m.

Slater reportedly left in his car, taking their 1-year-old daughter with him.-placeholder
Slater reportedly left in his car, taking their 1-year-old daughter with him.
KESQ NewsChannel 3/YouTube

Slater reportedly left in his car, taking their 1-year-old daughter with him.

Police received a report around 9 a.m. Wedensday that there was a collision about 15 miles from where Grome was found. The description of the car matched the description of the vehicle that Slater had driven. The vehicle was overturned off Highway 74 in Santa Rosa.

News reports say witnesses to the crash rushed to help those in the overturned car when the driver allegedly got out.

The driver, later identified as Slater, allegedly got out of the driver’s seat, ran to the other side, and stabbed a bystander who was trying to help remove a baby girl from under the overturned car, according to reports. 

Slater took the baby girl, identified later as Madalyn, and, according to multiple witnesses, proceeded to “throw her over a steep cliff into a ravine,” the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said. He took off on foot into the canyon.

Sheriff's deputies arrived and were able to catch up to Slater. They also found Madalyn, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Slater was taken to the hospital to treat his injuries from the crash.

“Right now, it’s painful ... painful,” says Chris Grome, Ashley’s uncle. “Everybody’s hurting pretty bad.”

Chris Grome said his niece was taken to the hospital, where she’s recovering and is expected to be OK. “She’s got some pretty bad cuts and wounds, you know, stabs,” he said.

The family is trying to make sense of the actions Slater reportedly took that day.

“To be that violent where you’re going to plot and plan and try to kill somebody like that and purposely do that -- and then to do what he did to an infant, a one-year-old infant, no,” Chris Grome said. “I don’t really have much to say to him.​“

Ashley Grome started a GoFundMe page to help pay for a funeral for her daughter.

“My daughter was the absolute love of my life and she meant everything and more to me. Everything I did and everything I will do for the rest of my life is for her,” Ashley wrote on the GoFundMe page. “She was beautiful and her smile was contagious, even after a bad day, she always cheered me up. She was taken from this world way too soon.”

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