Jury selected in trial of SC Food Network star accused of beating foster child to death

A jury was selected in a Greenville courtroom Monday for the trial of a former Food Network television show winner accused of killing a foster child in her care.

Ariel Robinson is charged with beating to death 3-year-old Victoria Smith in January 2021. Robinson won “Worst Cook in America” several months before the child’s death.

Forty people were being considered for the jury. Twelve jurors were selected, six men and six women, along with three alternates. Opening arguments in the trial are set to start at 2:15 p.m.

Robinson’s husband Austin pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse last month in the girl’s death and is expected to testify.

He told the court that he heard the girl’s screams from outside his house as his wife beat her with a belt. He told his wife, “You’ve gone too far this time.”

He faces 10 to 20 years in state prison.

Before jury selection began, Judge Letitia Verdin denied against a defense motion, saying statements Robinson made in her Simpsonville home shortly after the child was taken to a hospital could be admitted into evidence.

Robinson’s attorney William Bouton had argued she had not been read her rights before making statements that could be incriminating.

The judge previously admitted photos of the child’s injuries.

Verdin ruled the photos are necessary for the state to prove its case. They also include a photo of the autopsy of Victoria that shows she bled to death internally from injuries to her legs.

Prosecutor Christy Sustakovitch said in a previous hearing that the autopsy photo was needed to counter Robinson’s allegation that Tori’s 7-year-old brother had caused the injuries.

The degree of force used could not have been done by “a 48-pound little boy,” she said.

Robinson has been held in the Greenville County Detention Center since her arrest five days after Victoria, known by her biological family as Tori, died.

Tori’s biological great-grandmother Vickie Phares was in the courtroom as was one of the women who served as a foster mother to Tori before she went to Ariel and Austin Robinson.

Tori was taken into child protective custody when she was several months old. Her two older brothers, both then preschool age, were taken as well after a neighbor saw them outside playing when the mother was asleep inside.

The boys were sent to one foster home and Victoria to another. They all spent time over the past three years in several foster homes, but the biological family had twice monthly visits with the children.

The Robinsons took in Tori and her two older brothers and were days away from an adoption being final when Tori died.