Man Who Shared A Home With 11-year-old Girl Abused To Death Walks Free On Probation

The abuse that killed A'Kyri Bell

A'Kyri Bell, 11, moved into a house in the Carolina Forest section of Horry County in December 2024, along with her father, Vernon Bell, and her then-15-year-old sister. The house belonged to Margaret Roberson, 57, whose daughters — Camisha McGaskey, 32, and Alexandria Thomas — also lived there.

Starting around Jan. 1, 2025, prosecutors say A'Kyri and four other children in the home — Roberson's stepson, McGaskey's daughter and a daughter of Roberson's other daughter, Lakesha Burnett — were made to work alongside Roberson on her contracted cleaning shifts in Conway. The children worked five days a week and were sometimes not brought home until 1 a.m., according to court testimony. They were punished for infractions as minor as sleeping or eating without permission.

A'Kyri's father moved back to Texas in April 2025 but left his daughters at Roberson's house so they could finish the school year. Court testimony states that McGaskey's abuse of A'Kyri escalated once he was gone — beatings, whippings, stomps and burnings, sometimes more than once a day, according to evidence photos shown at trial.

On June 11, 2025, A'Kyri spilled food on herself. McGaskey forced her into an upstairs bathroom for a bath and, after seeing the girl urinate on herself, began waterboarding her — grabbing her head and forcing it underwater, slamming it against the tub, according to testimony. Darnell Dearmas was in an upstairs bedroom. He testified that he heard McGaskey storm up the stairs screaming, followed by loud banging, and texted his girlfriend, Alexandria Thomas, to come home because he thought McGaskey was going to kill the child. He also told the court he recorded audio of what happened — then deleted it two days later at Roberson's request. Paramedics found A'Kyri's body in an upstairs bedroom, not the bathroom. She died of multiple blunt force injuries to the head.

Who was in that house

Camisha McGaskey, 32, is A'Kyri's cousin and the daughter of the homeowner, Margaret Roberson. A jury convicted her of murder and obstruction of justice on Oct. 27, after a week-long trial in which she did not testify and her attorney, Ralph Wilson Sr., called no witnesses. Jurors deliberated less than an hour. She was sentenced to life in prison and is now held at Camille Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia.

Darnell Dearmas, 21, is Alexandria Thomas's boyfriend. He and Thomas shared the home with McGaskey, Roberson and the children — and with their own infant son, who was between 6 and 9 months old at the time of A'Kyri's death.

Alexandria Thomas is McGaskey's sister — 20 years old according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News, 21 according to WBTW. She and Dearmas both testified against McGaskey, authenticating more than an hour of video and audio that prosecutors said proved McGaskey ran a 44-day stretch of torture before A'Kyri's death.

Margaret Roberson, 57, owns the house and is McGaskey's mother. She faces five counts of trafficking in persons, three counts of unlawful conduct toward a child, one count of criminal conspiracy and one count of allowing another person to inflict harm on a child, accused of trafficking A'Kyri and four other children for labor. Her former attorney, Morgan Martin, denied she did anything wrong; she now has a new lawyer, and a scheduled Oct. 29 hearing was continued as a result.

Two more of Roberson's daughters, Alantis Thomas, 22, and Lakesha Burnett, 34, are accused in arrest warrants of knowing McGaskey was abusing the children, doing nothing to stop it, and letting their own children live in and around the house during the abuse. Both face pending obstruction of justice charges tied to an alleged cover-up after A'Kyri's death. Both have denied wrongdoing.

"should not even be in the same breath as Camisha McGaskey," — Jimmy Richardson, 15th Circuit solicitor, to WMBF

What the plea deals and sentences actually mean

Dearmas pleaded guilty Oct. 21 to a single charge covering the time his infant son lived in the home where A'Kyri was being abused — not to anything connected to her death itself. Outlets covering the case use different names for that same charge: WMBF and WBTW call it "unlawfully placing a child at risk of harm," the Myrtle Beach Sun News calls it "unlawful child neglect," and WCIV calls it "unlawful conduct toward a child." All four are describing one guilty plea.

On Thursday, Circuit Court Judge David Caraker sentenced Dearmas to 10 years in prison, suspended to the 458 days he had already served — meaning he will not serve additional prison time — followed by three years of probation. That probation term can end after two years if he has no violations.

Thomas pleaded guilty to the identical charge and was sentenced days earlier to the same structure: 10 years suspended to the 445 days she had already served, followed by three years of probation, reducible to two.

Neither Dearmas nor Thomas was charged with obstruction of justice, unlike McGaskey. Prosecutors said that was because both cooperated with investigators and told the truth after their arrests — even though Dearmas acknowledged deleting the audio recording he made the day A'Kyri died.

What prosecutors and the defense have said

Solicitor Jimmy Richardson defended the decision to let Dearmas and Thomas testify without, in his telling, a formal deal attached. "We didn't make a deal with anybody," he said Oct. 26, according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News. "They came in and gave a bird's eye view of what was happening in the house."

Richardson drew a sharp line between the two witnesses and the woman convicted of killing A'Kyri. Thomas and Dearmas "should not even be in the same breath as Camisha McGaskey," he told WMBF.

Dearmas's attorney, David Rigney, argued for leniency by casting his client as someone with little power in the household. "I believe he has very limited culpability," Rigney said, according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News, adding that Dearmas did not finish high school, mainly stayed in his room, and wanted to return to Houston, Texas, but was kept from leaving because Roberson held onto his records.

McGaskey's attorney, Ralph Wilson Sr., tried a different argument at trial — that Dearmas and Thomas changed their accounts to help themselves. Both had initially told police a version of events that matched Thomas's family's story before Thomas gave prosecutors a new statement in March 2026.

The trafficking case still ahead

A'Kyri's death and McGaskey's murder conviction are only part of the Horry County case. McGaskey and Roberson both face separate trafficking charges tied to the five children prosecutors say were forced to work Roberson's cleaning shifts. A spokesperson for the 15th Circuit Solicitor's Office said prosecutors hope to try that case in March 2027.

Roberson's own hearing, originally set for Oct. 29, was pushed back after she retained a new attorney. Alantis Thomas and Lakesha Burnett still face pending obstruction of justice charges over the alleged cover-up that followed A'Kyri's death — charges neither Dearmas nor Thomas was asked to answer for.

What happens next

The next major date on the calendar is March 2027, when the 15th Circuit Solicitor's Office hopes to try Camisha McGaskey and Margaret Roberson on the separate human trafficking charges tied to A'Kyri Bell and four other children. Roberson's case also has an unresolved hearing after she changed attorneys, and pending obstruction of justice charges against Alantis Thomas and Lakesha Burnett remain unscheduled.