By admin 
Content warning: The story below contains descriptions of abuse and physical violence against minors.
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Nineteen-year-old Alexandria Thomas walked into the garage of her family’s Myrtle Beach area home one day in June 2025 to see her sister punching 11-year-old A’Kyri Bell.
Thomas, her three sisters, her mom and her boyfriend had moved to Horry County from Houston, Texas, and had been living in a two-story house located in a gated Carolina Forest community with several minor children, including A’Kyri.
That day in June, Thomas said she walked into the garage, saw her sister Camisha McGaskey punching A’Kyri and walked back out.
About two days later, Thomas had been shopping at Kroger when she received a text from her boyfriend Darnell Dearmus saying: “(McGaskey) is killing this girl.”
McGaskey is on trial for the murder of A’Kyri, who authorities say died after she was beaten to death on June 11, 2025, in the home on Sago Palm Drive. A week after A’Kyri’s death, police charged McGaskey with murder. She’s also facing a charge for obstruction of justice.
Thomas was among several witnesses who testified Wednesday in the case. Thomas’ time on the stand gave the courtroom a peek into what A’Kyri’s life was like living in what has been described as a “house of horrors.”
Little girl wasn’t the only child in home
A’Kyri had moved to the Myrtle Beach area at the end of 2024 with her older sister and her father, Vernon Bell. Bell had left the house at some point in April 2025, leaving the two children behind more than a month before A’Kyri died, according to testimony in court. Police after A’Kyri’s death had said that McGaskey was her caregiver.
Thomas, who is now 21, appeared in court in Conway on Wednesday in a blue jumpsuit and handcuffs where she faced questions about A’Kyri’s death.
A’Kyri, Thomas told the courtroom, had been subjected to almost daily punishments by McGaskey for more than a month before she died. Some of those included McGaskey beating or hitting A’Kyri with different objects, while other times she was forced to walk up and down the stairs in the house for hours, according to court testimony.
Following A’Kyri’s death, an investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and Horry County Police Department found that several minor children living at the house had been forced to work by cleaning medical clinics in the Conway area.
McGaskey, Thomas and Dearmus were charged as a result of the separate investigation. Three other people, McGaskey’s mother, Margaret Roberson, and her other two sisters, Alantis Thomas and Lakesha Burrnett have also been charged.
Thomas and Dearmus each pleaded guilty to unlawful conduct toward a child in court on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
The upper room
Roberson’s stepson, who was 15 years old at the time of A’Kyri’s death and had been living at the house, appeared in court Wednesday as a witness for Solicitor Jimmy Richardson and lead prosecutor Leigh Waller, who are handling the case for the state.
The boy was on the stand for the majority of the morning, often answering questions with one word or nodding his head to indicate “yes” or “no” to Waller’s questions. McGaskey, he affirmed, had frequently beat A’Kyri with her hands, electrical cords and other items.
But the almost daily beatings weren’t the only punishments A’Kyri suffered from McGaskey, both the boy and Alexandria Thomas discussed during their testimony.
Alexandria Thomas said she witnessed McGaskey at least twice burning A’Kyri with water in the kitchen. At one point in the kitchen, McGaskey told a screaming A’Kyri, “Bitch, shut up. I’m going to jail,” according to court testimony.
The burns from the water had also left scars on A’Kyri’s body that were later identified by medical experts after she died.
There were also other times when McGaskey had struck A’Kyri with a cord while she had been forced to walk up and down the stairs because the girl wasn’t doing it correctly, or she had accidentally peed herself, according to testimony from Alexandria Thomas and the boy.
Screenshots from videos of these moments on the stairs were displayed in court with one photo showing where McGaskey appears to grab the back of A’Kyri neck. Another photo showed McGaskey dragging a partially-naked A’Kyri down the stairs.
But one of the forms of abuse McGaskey dealt to A’Kyri took place in an upstairs bathroom that took on a name of its own in court on Wednesday— the upper room punishment.
The upper room sat at the top of the stairs of the two-story house. Alexandria Thomas and Dearmus lived in the bedroom next to the bathroom with their son, who was a year old.
According to the boy and Alexandria Thomas’ testimony, McGaskey would take A’Kyri into the bathroom where her head was held under water in the bathtub. At some points, A’Kyri’s hands had also been tied with duct tape.
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What contributed to A’Kyri’s death?
After A’Kyri’s death, McGaskey told HCPD officers that they had been at the pool and park earlier in the day when the 11-year-old girl began throwing up, according to body camera footage played in court on Oct. 20.
But testimony shared by the boy and Alexandria Thomas on Wednesday contradicted McGaskey’s earlier statements about an outing to the park and to the pool.
The family had not gone to either, they said. Instead, the boy told the court that he and others at the house were preparing to go to the laundry at a laundromat when A’Kyri was upstairs.
What happened next is still unclear.
McGaskey told officers that later in the evening, A’Kyri had gone into the bathroom by the stairs — the upper room — to take a shower. A’Kyri then fell in the bathtub, causing her to start getting sick to the point where she lost consciousness.
McGaskey then said she called 911, where she told the operator that A’Kyri had passed out but was still breathing.
The prosecution hasn’t had any witnesses yet explicitly testify about what happened in the bathroom while A’Kyri is said to have been taking a shower. Dearmus, who had texted Alexandria Thomas before A’Kyri died on June 11, was in the bedroom next to the upper room, according to court testimony.
Dearmus has not testified yet in the trial but is expected to take the stand for the prosecution.
When EMS arrived at the house around 5:45 p.m., A’Kyri was found lying outside the bathroom on her back, and she didn’t have a pulse. A paramedic at the scene testified that A’Kyri also had a black eye and a lip split from top to bottom.
The back of A’Kyri’s head was also soft, indicating that she had been struck there, according to medical testimony in court. EMS transported A’Kyri to Grand Strand Carolina Forest emergency room where she was officially declared dead. A doctor who treated A’Kyri testified on Tuesday that after her death, he observed several wounds. Some had happened within the last one to two days, he said.
Crime scene photos taken after A’Kyri was removed from the house showed that several areas in the bathroom, including the sink, the toilet and the bathtub had spots that tested presumptively positive for blood.
The alleged cleanup
Part of Wednesday’s testimony included crime scene detectives with HCPD who testified that other items that also tested presumptively positive for blood were found in the garage in trash bags.
McGaskey, along with her sisters Alantis Thomas and Burnett, have been charged with obstruction of justice in the case. The trio was arrested in the days following A’Kyri’s death and accused of preventing, impeding or interfering with a law enforcement investigation by “providing known false statements and attempting to obscure and destroy evidence related to the death of a juvenile victim.”
According to warrants, officers found physical evidence — including mops, towels and bedding — in trash bags. Those items tested presumptively positive for blood, according to court testimony.
A report from SLED showed that the blood tested from the physical evidence had been A’Kyri’s.
Minors cleaned for Roberson’s job, witnesses state
On Wednesday, Roberson’s stepson testified that on an average school day, he and other children at the house would clean for two to three hours at various medical clinics. Roberson had a job at Conway Medical Center cleaning at least two different clinics, Alexandria Thomas testified.
After cleaning, the boy said he would come back to the house where he then had to clean the home at night.
The boy’s testimony started to paint a picture of what state and local law enforcement officials have designated as a labor trafficking scheme where minors in the house were subjected to forced labor. As a result of SLED and HCPD’s investigation, Roberson and McGaskey were each charged with three counts of unlawful conduct of a child, Alantis Thomas and Burnett each received two counts and Alexandria Thomas and Dearmus were each charged with one count.
Other testimony and evidence presented in court on Wednesday presented snapshots of how the minors lived in the house day to day.
Crime scene photos taken after A’Kyri’s death showed the house had multiple motion sensor cameras placed in the kitchen and near the door.
A photo from Roberson’s room captured that other snacks and food had been kept in her room.
Another photo from the kitchen showed a pantry door with a lock on it. The boy, he told the courtroom, did not have the key to unlock the door.
This story was originally published October 22, 2026 at 4:25 AM with the headline “‘House of horrors’: Girl was abused, taken to ‘upper room’ in SC home, witness says.”
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