Erica Bell’s grandmother took the stand today in Bell’s murder trial. Deborah Smith testified that Bell admitted to her that she hit three-year-old Brooke Stagles, her boyfriend’s daughter.
Bell is accused of beating the little girl to death, punching her so hard in the stomach that it ruptured her intestines and caused her death three days later. Smith said Bell showed her bruises on Brooke stagles back and chest, and that she had a black eye which Bell said was from hitting her eye on a faucet.
Smith said she screamed at her daughter that no one had the right to hit a child like that, and Erica Bell agreed. Smith also says she repeatedly told her daughter to take Stagles to the hospital, but her daughter told her to stop bringing it up.