Woman pleads not guilty in murder of Millmont girl

Reading Eagle

Feb. 16--A Reading woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Berks County Court to charges she killed a 12-year-old Millmont girl by beating her with a mop handle and sitting on her.

Rose M. Boyd-Tolver, 40, of the 700 block of McKnight Street was returned to Berks County Prison without bail following arraignment before Judge James M. Bucci on first-degree murder and related charges in the Sept. 4 death of Amira Brown. According to city detectives: Boyd-Tolver, who weighs about 260 pounds, struck Brown repeatedly and then sat on her in the girl's bedroom at 630 Summit Ave., where Brown was under the foster care of Barbara Martin.

Boyd-Tolver was a friend of Martin's and was in the residence watching Brown.

When Martin returned home, she found Brown, a seventh-grader at Southwest Middle School who weighed 130 pounds, unconscious beside her bed.

Brown was dead on arrival in Reading Hospital. She died of cardiorespiratory collapse caused by a beating and physical restraint, according to an autopsy report.