Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Man to Be Tried in Child’s Death : Crime: The Palmdale resident faces a murder charge. He admitted shaking the 22-month-old girl, a deputy testifies.

LANCASTER — A 26-year-old Palmdale man was ordered Wednesday to stand trial for murder in the shaking death of his girlfriend’s 22-month-old daughter after a sheriff’s deputy testified the man admitted shaking the child.

Antelope Municipal Judge Carlos Baker ordered Cleveland S. Johnson to stand trial on the charge after a preliminary hearing. Johnson remains in custody in lieu of $1-million bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned July 21 in Lancaster Superior Court.

During the hearing, Sheriff’s Deputy Pamela Schrick testified Johnson at first said the child had fallen from her crib onto a carpeted floor. But later, Schrick testified, Johnson told deputies that he had shaken the child two or three times just before she fell unconscious.

A Los Angeles County coroner’s autopsy concluded that the April 29 death of Simone Kosloff was a homicide caused by brain trauma, apparently from a severe shaking. The child was stricken the night of April 28 at the Palmdale apartment Johnson shared with Kaye R. Kosloff, 20, the child’s mother.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Schrick testified that Johnson changed his story after being told of the coroner’s autopsy findings. With the mother asleep, Johnson said he found the child playing in her bedroom about 10 p.m., grabbed her shoulders and shook her two or three times, Schrick testified.

At that point, Johnson told authorities, the child’s eyes began fluttering, her head rolled back and she began having trouble breathing, the deputy testified. Johnson then woke the child’s mother, called 911 and tried to resuscitate the child.

Schrick, a sheriff’s homicide investigator, also testified that the child’s head had a series of bruises that the coroner’s office concluded were inflicted shortly before she was stricken. The deputy also said clumps of the child’s hair, which had apparently been pulled out, were found in her crib.

Johnson did not testify or call any witnesses during Wednesday’s hearing. The child’s mother was not present in court, but Schrick later said the mother has been devastated by her child’s death. County children’s services workers had no prior allegations of abuse involving the child, Schrick said.

The case is the first Antelope Valley child abuse homicide acknowledged by authorities since a string of seven similar deaths rocked the region from mid-1991 to mid-1992.

Five of those seven cases involved adult use of the drug methamphetamine, but this case did not, authorities said.