A Louisiana woman pleaded not guilty Friday to first-degree murder and obstruction charges in the April 25 killing of 6-year-old Bella Fontenelle, whose body was found in a large plastic bucket on her mother’s front lawn.
Authorities allege that Hannah Landon, 43, beat and strangled Bella, the daughter of her live-in boyfriend, stuffed her body in a 10-gallon bucket, and then towed it on a small wagon to the house of the girl’s biological mother, who lived nearby in Harahan.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said that Bella’s father reported his daughter and girlfriend missing the morning of April 26. Authorities allege that Landon (also known as Bunnak Lim and Bunnak Landon) killed Bella sometime after 7:30 the night before when Bella’s grandmother said she helped her and her 7-year-old sister get ready for bed before leaving the girls in Landon’s care.
Authorities said a security camera captured a woman believed to be Landon retrieving a large bucket from the side of her house at around 9:30 p.m. Video surveillance footage obtained from other neighbors shows a woman authorities identified as Landon pulling a wagon with a bucket down her street and the next street over, where Bella’s mother lived.
After returning home with the empty wagon, authorities said Landon buried her cellphone in a nearby yard and went to the Harahan Police Department around midnight. She seemed “distressed,” a police officer said, but she did not explain why. She was eventually transported to the hospital, where she was arrested later that day.
Bella’s father and mother, who shared custody of the 6-year-old and her sister, are not considered suspects in the child’s killing, authorities said.
In a June 29 court hearing, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office homicide detective said that although the girls said Landon was “mean” and they didn’t like staying at their father’s house, there was no indication that she would harm his daughters.
Bella’s mother, however, told police in 2021 that Landon had attacked her at a swim meet, according to court records obtained by NOLA.com. In response, Landon, who claimed Bella’s mother started the fight, filed for a restraining order against Bella’s mother, which a judge later denied.
On Thursday, a grand jury indicted Landon on the murder charge and two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly disposing of the body and hiding her cellphone.
Landon will remain in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center, where she has been held without bond since her arrest on April 26. Attorneys representing Landon did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors will not be pursuing the death penalty, a spokesperson for the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office told HuffPost.
A judge Thursday set Landon’s bail at $2.5 million.