Daughter arrested in fatal hammer-and-knife attack on mother

A woman who confessed to killing her mother with a hammer and knife in her Lakewood apartment has been arrested, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Angie Diamond, 32, told homicide detectives she killed her mother, Margaret Rion, 57, after a verbal dispute, according to a department statement attributed to Deputy Quiana Birkbeck.

Diamond was being held early Thursday at Century Regional Detention Facility on $1-million bail, the statement said.

Officials said Rion was found dead on Tuesday inside a two-story apartment building across the street from the Heritage Family Pantry, a popular local diner near the intersection of Paramount Boulevard and Carson Street.

Deputies had gone to the apartment in the 4100 block of Maybank Avenue to respond to a report of a woman shot to death after Rion’s body was found by a relative with “trauma to the upper torso,” according to the Sheriff’s Department statement.

Diamond was previously arrested on March 17 and held until March 26 on two misdemeanor charges of being under the influence of a controlled substance, according to Sheriff’s Department records. She was released on her own recognizance.

Residents described Rion’s Lakewood neighborhood as safe and said they were surprised to hear sirens as deputies and firefighters responded to the scene.

“This is a quiet neighborhood,” said Mike Ellis, 42, who lives in the apartment building next door. He said the area has experienced some minor break-ins “but nothing that would lead to all of this.”

“I came out to have a smoke like I usually do,” he said, “and I saw all these cop cars.”

Kenny Battle, 29, who has lived in the neighborhood for about three years, said he heard the sirens.

“Stuff like this don’t happen around here,” he said. “It’s scary.”

Since January 2007, at least five homicides have been reported in Lakewood, according to The Times Homicide Report.