She Testified Her Sister Beat A'Kyri Bell, 11, For Hours A Day — Then Walked Free
Alexandria Thomas, 21, testified that her sister beat 11-year-old A'Kyri Bell daily — sometimes for hours — inside their shared Horry County home, then admitted she never called police. On Monday, a judge sentenced her to time already served, plus probation, while her sister begins a life sentence for murder.
Case at a glance
- A'Kyri Bell — 11-year-old killed in Horry County, SC, victim
- Camisha McGaskey — sister, found guilty of killing A'Kyri Bell, convicted
- Alexandria Thomas — sister of McGaskey, pleaded guilty to child endangerment, testified against her, sentenced
- Darnell Dearmas — Thomas's boyfriend, pleaded guilty to child endangerment, sentencing pending, convicted
Next: Darnell Dearmas is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday on the same child-endangerment charge Alexandria Thomas pleaded guilty to, before the same judge, David Caraker Jr. Beyond that, McGaskey and Margaret Roberson still face trafficking-related charges prosecutors hope to bring to trial in March 2027, and Atlantis Thomas and Lakesha Burnett still face witness-intimidation and assault charges tied to their alleged treatment of Alexandria Thomas after she cooperated with police.
What happened at the house on Sago Palm Drive
A'Kyri Bell was 11 years old when she died on June 11, 2025, inside a home on Sago Palm Drive in the Carolina Forest area of Horry County, South Carolina. Camisha McGaskey, 32, who lived there, called 911 and told investigators the girl had fallen in an upstairs bathroom.
In a recorded interview later obtained by WMBF, McGaskey told a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigator and two Horry County Police officers that she heard 'a loud boom,' ran upstairs and found Bell 'halfway in the tub, halfway out,' not responding. She said a relative poured ice water on Bell before she called 911 and stayed on the line.
The evidence didn't match that story. A paramedic who responded testified at trial that Bell was fully clothed and completely dry — not what you'd expect from a child who had just fallen in the shower. A crime scene investigator testified he found what appeared to be blood around the inside of the bathtub and in Bell's bedroom, including on her backpack.
Text messages sent from McGaskey's phone that night, one just after 9:20 p.m., asked whether a camera had been hidden in the trash and told someone to delete videos, according to testimony from a Horry County Sheriff's Office electronic crimes lieutenant. Thomas later testified that the home's cameras were thrown away and she was told to 'delete everything' she had from them.
The sister who testified, and who else lived in that house
Alexandria Thomas, 21, is McGaskey's sister. She lived in the Sago Palm Drive home with her boyfriend, Darnell Dearmas, their young child, another sister, Lakesha Burnett, a fourth sister, Atlantis Thomas, and their mother, Margaret Roberson. Bell was one of several children living under that roof.
On the stand during McGaskey's trial, Thomas testified that McGaskey beat Bell daily — sometimes more than once a day, for hours at a time. The Horry County Solicitor's Office later described what Thomas detailed as a 'house of horrors,' according to the Sun News and NewsBreak.
A 15-year-old boy who also lived in the home, identified only as Roberson's stepson, testified that the children helped clean medical clinics where Roberson worked, including at least two Conway Medical Center locations, then did more cleaning at home and the family's laundry — sometimes hauled to a laundromat because the loads were too big.
Judge David Caraker Jr. presided over both McGaskey's murder trial and the sentencing hearings that followed for Thomas and Dearmas.
"She has what appears to be 100 or more old scars, some healed, some newer, all about her body," — investigating officer, in a police interview obtained by WMBF.
What the record actually charges each person with
McGaskey was found guilty in October 2026 of murder and obstruction of justice in Bell's death and sentenced to life in prison. WPDE reported the trial reached a fifth day on October 23; the Sun News and NewsBreak described it as four days of testimony.
Thomas pleaded guilty during that trial to a charge outlets name differently: WBTW and Yahoo call it 'unlawfully placing a child at risk of harm,' the Sun News and NewsBreak call it 'unlawful neglect of a child,' and WPDE calls it 'unlawful conduct toward a child.' On Monday, Caraker sentenced her to 10 years, suspended to the 445 days she had already served, plus three years of probation — two years if she has no violations.
Prosecutors told the court that Thomas's charge, and the identical one Dearmas pleaded guilty to, covers only having their own child inside that home — not anything done to Bell. Neither was charged with obstruction of justice; prosecutors said both told the truth and cooperated from the moment they were arrested. Dearmas is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday on the same charge.
The case isn't finished. McGaskey and Roberson each face five counts of trafficking in persons under 18 and one count of criminal conspiracy, plus three counts each of unlawful conduct toward a child; Atlantis Thomas and Burnett face two counts each of that same child-conduct charge. A spokesperson for the 15th Circuit Solicitor's Office told WMBF prosecutors hope to try the trafficking charges in March 2027.
What the judge, prosecutors and the defense said
Judge Caraker acknowledged what it cost Thomas to testify against her own sister. 'I appreciate how difficult it was to be in and testify against an older sister. And some of the backlash that you have certainly received from your family, as a result, with all that being said, this is still, you know, a very serious matter and a very serious charge,' he said, according to WBTW.
He also addressed the child Thomas and Dearmas share. 'The saving grace there, if there is, is hopefully he was too young to remember any, anything that was going on in the house,' Caraker said, adding: 'And, you guys have certainly been given a window, or look, into what not to do as parents.'
Thomas's defense argued circumstance, not excuse: she was 19 at the time, a new mother, without the resources to leave. The Sun News and NewsBreak reported that an attorney for the state told the judge Thomas did the 'right thing' by telling police what went on in the home.
That cooperation followed her home. In February, prosecutors added witness-intimidation and assault charges against Atlantis Thomas and Lakesha Burnett after accusing them of calling Alexandria Thomas a 'rat' and a 'snitch' for her statement to police, according to a bond hearing covered by the Sun News and NewsBreak.
What investigators found on A'Kyri's body
In the recorded interview, investigators described to McGaskey what they had seen on Bell's body. 'She has injuries on her you can see without her being in clothes... And when she's clothed, you can still see she has, and I'll be honest with you, okay? It pissed me off, is what it does,' one officer said, according to WMBF.
The same officer said Bell had 'what appears to be 100 or more old scars, some healed, some newer, all about her body.' One of the detectives who conducted the interview later told the court Bell was 'the most beat up' child he had seen in his career.
McGaskey told investigators in that same interview that she didn't know Bell had died until they told her directly, more than 20 minutes into the questioning. 'I don't like putting people in jail... I kept asking everybody what's going on. What's going on? Oh my God,' she said. Bell's father, who lives in Texas, has not been charged in connection with her death, and no evidence has placed him in Horry County the day she died.
What happens next
Darnell Dearmas is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday on the same child-endangerment charge Alexandria Thomas pleaded guilty to, before the same judge, David Caraker Jr. Beyond that, McGaskey and Margaret Roberson still face trafficking-related charges prosecutors hope to bring to trial in March 2027, and Atlantis Thomas and Lakesha Burnett still face witness-intimidation and assault charges tied to their alleged treatment of Alexandria Thomas after she cooperated with police.
How this plays in court
The charging decision here is the case in miniature. Prosecutors chose not to charge Thomas or Dearmas for anything done to Bell, only for keeping their own child inside a home they knew was dangerous. That distinction let the state reward cooperation — no obstruction charge, a plea to the lightest available count, a sentence that amounts to time served — while still holding them accountable for exposing an infant to it.
The defense leaned on circumstance: Thomas's age, her status as a new mother, the lack of anywhere else to go. That argument doesn't erase what she heard happening down the hall, but it's the kind of mitigation that routinely moves a sentence toward probation instead of prison, especially paired with testimony that helped convict the person actually accused of the violence.
A jury or judge weighing a case like this has to separate two different failures: failing to stop abuse, and failing to report it. South Carolina's charge against Thomas targets the narrower conduct — risk to her own child — not a broader legal duty to act on what she saw happening to Bell. That gap is exactly what a skeptic means when they ask whether cooperation bought a lighter outcome than the underlying facts alone would suggest.
The trafficking case still ahead will test different facts entirely — forced labor, not physical abuse — and nobody charged in it has been convicted of anything. Whatever reaction this sentencing produces, it has no bearing on what prosecutors still have to prove against Roberson, McGaskey, Atlantis Thomas and Lakesha Burnett in that separate matter.
- Yahoo: She Testified Her Sister Beat A'Kyri Bell, 11, For Hours A Day — Then Walked Free
- WBTW: Sister of woman convicted of 11-year-old’s Horry County murder to be sentenced Monday
- WMBF: Interview vs. trial: What a Horry County woman convicted of killing child told police
- NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts: Judge suspends sentence for sister of SC woman convicted in child's murder. Here's why
- WPDE: Sentencing scheduled for 2 co-defendants who testified in McGaskey trial