A'Kyri Bell

A'Kyri Bell was an 11 year old girl from Bay City, Texas, whose death in South Carolina in June 2025 led to murder and human trafficking charges against the adults who had been caring for her, and whose case has since become one of the most closely watched child abuse prosecutions in the state. She was born on December 15, 2013, in Bay City, Texas, to Tarshal Davis and Vernon Bell, and was known to family and friends by the nicknames Ny Ny and Star. She attended schools in the Bay City and Van Vleck school districts in Texas before she went to live with a relative in South Carolina.

In the months before her death, A'Kyri had been pulled out of school and was being homeschooled while staying at a home on Sago Palm Drive in the Carolina Forest area of Horry County, South Carolina, in the care of a woman identified by investigators as her father's cousin and legal guardian. Prosecutors later said that removing her from a classroom setting meant that teachers and other mandated reporters who might otherwise have noticed signs of abuse never had the chance to see her.

On June 13, 2025, A'Kyri died at a hospital in Carolina Forest after what was initially reported to emergency responders as a fainting incident in a bathtub. The Horry County Coroner's Office determined that she had died of multiple blunt force injuries and opened a homicide investigation. Her death led investigators to a wider case: authorities said that A'Kyri and other children living in the same home had allegedly been made to perform cleaning jobs, including at medical facilities, as part of a human trafficking scheme, and that she had been physically abused for more than six months before she died.

Six adults were ultimately charged in connection with the case, among them Camisha McGaskey, the guardian who had been caring for A'Kyri and who was charged with murder along with human trafficking, obstruction of justice and child neglect related offenses. Margaret Roberson and several others who lived in or were connected to the home were also charged, including with unlawful conduct toward a child and trafficking in persons. Prosecutors have described the case as a horrific crime and have said they are not offering a plea deal to McGaskey.

A funeral service for A'Kyri was held on July 5, 2025, at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Bay City, Texas, where her family and community gathered to remember her. Her death prompted public anger and grief in both South Carolina and Texas, and renewed scrutiny of how children who are pulled from school and placed with distant relatives or guardians are monitored by child welfare systems. The criminal case against the adults charged in her death has continued through 2025 and 2026, with McGaskey's trial scheduled to begin in the days ahead.