Toddler Beaten Before Fatal Fire -- Aggravated-Murder Charges Considered In Blaze, Two Deaths

Two-year-old Antonia Reed died in a fire, but her nightmare began before the first match was ever struck.

The little girl, who with her father was killed in her grandmother's Kent-area home last week, had been struck repeatedly with a blunt instrument.

She had a lacerated liver, injured ribs and a lacerated intestine and stomach, according to the King County prosecutor. Antonia was attacked shortly before the fire was started.

The suspect in the killing is Antonia's mother.

BAIL SET AT $500,000

Tonia Davis, 22, of Seattle, will be arraigned in Superior Court tomorrow on two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of assaulting police officers, two counts of taking a motor vehicle without the owners' permission, and one count of stealing a pair of shoes during a burglary.

Bail is set at $500,000, and prosecutors are considering upgrading the murder charges to aggravated murder.

Davis allegedly killed her boyfriend, Adrian Reed, by hitting him at least three to five times behind his left ear with a blunt object; she then set fire to the recreation room, leaving her daughter there.

The fire was started with an accelerant in three or four spots in the recreation room, where the bodies were found.

Prosecutors contend Davis then roller-skated to a neighbor's house, where she struggled with a man over his car keys, stole his high-top tennis shoes, then stole a water-department truck. She abandoned that for a Jeep, and finally was arrested after driving to a police station, where she took on two female police officers, trying to stab one of them with her own badge.

When Davis' mother, Nabeehah Shakoor, questioned her daughter in jail, Davis said her boyfriend had been chasing her with a knife, according to charging papers.

VIOLENT FIGHTS ALLEGED

Davis and Reed had a stormy relationship marked by frequent arguments and physical violence, according to charging papers. The two had recently broken up.

Davis allegedly told her mother she was afraid of Reed and needed to get away from him. When Shakoor left for work early Wednesday morning, she told her daughter she loved her and asked if she was all right.

"I don't know, Mom. I, I don't know," Davis said, according to the charging papers.

Three hours later, the Kent Fire Department was responding to the fire.