The short, tragic life of Alycia Augusta Mesiti-Allen ended at the hands of her father, prosecutors say.

Mark Edward Mesiti was charged last week with killing and molesting the 14-year-old girl in Ceres, a town outside Modesto, less than a year after a Santa Clara County judge put her in Mesiti’s custody.

Mesiti, 41, is in custody in Los Angeles on separate charges of running a meth lab and endangering his current girlfriend’s 12-year-old daughter. But once that case is prosecuted, Mesiti will be arrested on a $2 million warrant and brought to Stanislaus County to face charges in the death of his daughter, Stanislaus officials say.

In addition to murder, Mesiti has been charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14, penetration by a foreign object, and giving the victim drugs or alcohol to prevent resistance during those acts.

“Sending her to live with Mark was a death sentence,” said the girl’s aunt, Roberta Fitzpatrick of San Jose. “It was just a travesty.”

When a family court in Santa Clara County granted Mesiti custody in 2005, Alycia had bounced from home to home among relatives after her mother, Roberta Allen, had been declared an unfit parent. And despite repeated reports of improper parenting — failure to enroll Alycia and her brother in school, not allowing the children to speak with their mother and allowing Alycia and her brother to go hungry — the girl was allowed to remain with Mesiti. The girls’ court-appointed lawyer had recommended only a supervised, temporary placement with Mesiti, who has a long criminal history.

When Alycia disappeared in 2006, her father claimed she had run away, and that he heard from her by phone from time to time. Roberta Allen wasn’t buying it and told the Mercury News she tried many times to get police in Ceres, where Mesiti lived, to investigate with no luck. After a longtime detective on the case retired, police reinterviewed principals in the case and launched a murder investigation.

In March of this year, cadaver-sniffing dogs found Alycia’s body buried in the yard of Mesiti’s former home in the Central Valley.

Mesiti faces life in prison if convicted, said Stanislaus County Assistant District Attorney Carol Shipley. Los Angeles authorities “will finish their case first and we’ll get it after that,” she said.

Shipley said Alycia was killed on Aug. 16, 2006, and molested the previous year, from April 1 through Sept. 30, 2005. On June 2, Mesiti was charged with killing his daughter.

Alycia “never got to enjoy anything,” her aunt said. “My greatest hope is that this sheds light on the way they’ve done things (in court) and that they will make changes.”

Contact Linda Goldston at lgoldston@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5862.