Clay

*820 Opinion

The California State Department of Health petitioned the superior court to have one Michele G, a minor, declared free from the custody and control of her parents following her father’s conviction of the murder, second degree, of her half sister and her mother’s conviction of being an accessory (Pen. Code, § 32) to the murder. Apparently by agreement, the minor was adjudged free from the custody and control of her mother, and the action continued against her father. Following an appropriate trial the superior court adjudged that: “Michele ... a minor person, is hereby declared and adjudged to be free from the parental custody and control of her father,...”

The father (hereafter “appellant”) alone has appealed.

Uncontroverted evidence established the facts which we shall now relate.

The mother of Michele had two children of a prior marriage, Kenneth, aged five, and Kelly, aged two and a half. Following her marriage to appellant he had “engaged in unreasonably and unnecessarily cruel and brutal treatment of Kelly . . . and Kenneth ... in that [he] severely beat these children with his belt and with his hands and fists so as to raise severe bruises and welts on the…