Sister of A’Kyri Bell murder defendant pleads guilty in Horry County trafficking case

Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2026 9:07 am

David Hucks (via MyrtleBeachSC)

Oct 21, 2026 · @ https://x.com/myrtlebeachnews

Editor’s note: This story describes violence against children. A note on the headline: Alexandria Thomas pleaded guilty to a child-neglect charge filed in the broader A’Kyri Bell murder investigation, not to a trafficking count. Every defendant who has not pleaded or been convicted is presumed innocent.

CONWAY — Midway through the opening of the murder trial for the woman accused of killing 11-year-old A’Kyri Bell, one of that woman’s own sisters stood before a judge and admitted she failed to protect the child.

Alexandria Thomas pleaded guilty Tuesday, Oct. 20, to a single count of unlawful child neglect in the case that has gripped Carolina Forest since June 2025 [Post and Courier, 2026]. WMBF described the charge by its formal name, placing a child at risk of harm, and reported that the plea was entered before testimony resumed in the trial of Camisha McGaskey.

Thomas has agreed to take the stand against McGaskey later this week, prosecutors told the court [Post and Courier, 2026]. Solicitor Jimmy Richardson confirmed she will testify. She faces up to 10 years in prison and will be sentenced later.

The tragic A’Kyri Bell murder case continues to unfold, revealing deep community concerns about child safety.

The Impact of the A’Kyri Bell murder on the Community

On its own, the plea is a modest charge. But its timing tells Horry County a great deal about how prosecutors intend to win the bigger case, and about a family that investigators say watched a child suffer for months without picking up a phone.

What Alexandria Thomas admitted

Thomas is the youngest of the six people charged after A’Kyri’s death. Police arrested her in 2025, shortly after five others were charged in August, and accused her of putting a child in her care at risk, the last of the half-dozen defendants to be booked [WBTW, 2025].

According to arrest warrants summarized by WMBF, investigators say Thomas saw McGaskey hurt A’Kyri inside the home more than once, using objects as well as her hands and feet, and neither stepped in nor reported it [WMBF, 2026]. At a bond hearing in March, one of the children who lived in the house went further, telling the court that both McGaskey and Thomas had hit her with a belt [WMBF, March 2026]. Those statements remain allegations; Thomas’s plea covered neglect only.

Coverage of her age varies. The Post and Courier lists her as 20 and WBTW as 21 [Post and Courier, 2026; WBTW, 2026]. Spelling of a co-defendant’s name, Darnell Dearmas or Dearmus, also differs between outlets, a reminder that early court records often carry small errors.

What the plea does not include matters as much as what it does. Thomas was never accused of trafficking. The forced-labor charges in this case have been filed against only two people: McGaskey and her mother, Margaret Roberson [ABC News 4/WPDE, 2026].

That distinction leads directly to the heart of the case: what investigators say happened inside the house on Sago Palm Drive.

The case behind the plea

Just before 6 p.m. on June 11, 2025, Horry County police were called to a home on Sago Palm Drive, off Legends Drive near U.S. 501, for an unresponsive child. A’Kyri was taken to Grand Strand Medical Center and later died [Post and Courier, 2026]. The coroner’s office attributed her death to multiple blunt-force injuries [WBTW, 2025].

A’Kyri lived in Texas. Authorities say she traveled from Houston with Roberson and McGaskey so Roberson could start a contract cleaning job in the Conway area [Post and Courier, 2026]. Police described McGaskey as the girl’s guardian and a distant cousin [WBTW, 2025].

The case widened quickly. McGaskey was first charged with obstruction of justice along with two other women, after investigators said bags of mops, towels and bedding were found inside the home; her charge was upgraded to murder following the autopsy [ABC News 4/WPDE, 2026]. In late July 2025, SLED, working with Homeland Security Investigations, charged McGaskey and Roberson with five counts each of trafficking minors, alleging the children were made to clean medical facilities in the Conway area [FITSNews, 2025]. Solicitor Richardson has said the trafficking would likely never have surfaced without the murder investigation [WBTW, 2025].

In August 2025, five adults, including Roberson, McGaskey, two more of Roberson’s daughters and Thomas’s boyfriend, were charged with unlawful conduct toward a child for allegedly failing to stop or report the abuse [ABC News 4/WPDE, 2026]. Seven other children were removed from the home and placed in state custody [Post and Courier, 2026].

A family on both sides of the witness stand

The Post and Courier frames this case as a story of a household’s silence. Roberson’s other daughters, Alantis Thomas and Lakesha Burnett, and Alexandria Thomas’s boyfriend are each accused in warrants of knowing about the abuse and doing nothing [Post and Courier, 2026]. Senior Assistant Solicitor Leigh Waller has cast Roberson as the head of that household [Post and Courier, 2026].

At Roberson’s March bond hearing, Waller told the court that children who refused to clean were threatened with what the household called the “upper room treatment,” a form of waterboarding in an upstairs bathroom, and said the state has videos of abuse [WMBF, March 2026]. Roberson’s attorney, Morgan Martin, has denied wrongdoing and argued the trafficking evidence is thin [Post and Courier, 2026].

That entire family now appears on the trial’s witness list of more than two dozen names [Post and Courier, 2026]. Prosecutors told jurors they will hear from McGaskey’s sister, her boyfriend and A’Kyri’s sister [WBTW, 2026].

The first day of testimony laid groundwork. A’Kyri’s fifth-grade teacher at River Oaks Elementary said the girl slept through class, asked for extra food and twice took food from classmates; school records put her last day at April 28, 2025 [WBTW, 2026]. A Horry County Fire Rescue paramedic testified that he found her clothed and dry despite claims she fell in a bathtub, with severe facial and skull injuries, and that people in the house gave him conflicting stories [WBTW, 2026].

McGaskey’s defense, led by attorney Ralph Wilson Sr., told jurors the state is trying her for murder, not abuse, and lacks proof of murder [WBTW, 2026; Post and Courier, 2026].

Analysis: why this plea matters

It answers the defense’s central argument. McGaskey’s lawyers say the state can prove abuse but not murder. The most direct way to close that gap is an eyewitness from inside the house. A sister who has just admitted in open court that she saw the abuse and did nothing is exactly that witness. Expect the defense to attack her credibility by pointing to her plea and possible leniency; expect prosecutors to argue she gains little by lying when she already faces up to a decade in prison.

It signals the solicitor’s strategy for the other four. Resolving a lower-level defendant’s case mid-trial, with a commitment to testify, is a familiar prosecution move. With Roberson due back in court Oct. 29 [Post and Courier, 2026], locals should watch whether Burnett, Alantis Thomas or Dearmas follow the same path. Each additional insider account makes the trafficking case against Roberson harder to dismiss.

It sharpens a question about who was watching. By the time A’Kyri stopped attending school, a teacher had noticed hunger and exhaustion and raised it with McGaskey [WBTW, 2026]. Investigators say McGaskey and Roberson pulled her from school roughly two months before she died, amid poor health and visible bruises [Post and Courier, 2026]. Those were warning signs that reached adults outside the home. Whether any formal report followed, and what happened to it, is a fair question for Horry County Schools and state child-welfare officials.

It corrects a myth about local trafficking. The Sun News found that the 10 trafficking charges opened in Horry County in 2025 appear to stem entirely from this one case, and that Horry’s numbers were roughly in line with similar-sized counties [The Sun News, 2026]. Horry County Sheriff’s Capt. Sherri Smith told the paper traffickers are most often someone the victim knows [The Sun News, 2026]. Here, that pattern held: no strangers, no tourist-strip operation, just a family home in a gated Carolina Forest neighborhood.

What’s next

This week: McGaskey’s trial is expected to run through the week, with Alexandria Thomas expected to testify [Post and Courier, 2026]. McGaskey faces murder, five trafficking counts, three counts of unlawful conduct toward a child and criminal conspiracy [WBTW, 2026].
Oct. 29: Roberson, 57, is scheduled back in court on her trafficking, conspiracy and child-endangerment charges [Post and Courier, 2026].
Later: Thomas’s sentencing date has not been set; she faces up to 10 years [Post and Courier, 2026]. Cases against Burnett, Alantis Thomas and Dearmas remain pending.

If you suspect a child is being trafficked or abused, contact local law enforcement or text the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 233733 [WMBF, 2025]. Tips can also go to the Coastal Region Human Trafficking Task Force through its mobile app [The Sun News, 2026].

We will update this story as testimony continues.