Teen Accused of Smothering 4-Year-Old Half-Sister, Dumping Her Body in Plastic Bin
A 17-year-old half-brother has been accused of suffocating his toddler sister to death before dumping her body in a plastic bin behind their South Carolina home, marking the death of a second child in four years for mother Krista Nix.
William Micah Hester now faces a murder charge in the death of 4-year-old Joanna J. Lockaby, whose body was found by a search and rescue team on Tuesday afternoon less than 30 minutes after she was reported missing. Video from WYFF 4 showed that the area behind the home was wooded.
The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to The Daily Beast that Hester is being charged as an adult. Local cops haven’t said why he would kill his baby sister.
Hester, who appears to go by his middle name “Micah,” appeared in court Wednesday afternoon, with his father, who shares the same name as him, and Nix in attendance.
“Micah would not do anything like this on purpose,” the father said, captured by WYFF News 4. “I know my boy. I can hold up my hand up to the lord and testify that because I know he's a good boy, never been in trouble and he loved his sister.”
Despite his father's pleas to have mercy on him, a judge ruled to hold Hester without bail.
This isn't the first time tragedy has struck within the family. Four years ago, the youngest sibling of Lockaby and Hester died from heat exhaustion after her grandmother had a medical episode that left the child abandoned in a hot car, the Greenville News reported in 2018.
The loss of that baby, one-year-old Jojo Lockaby, devastated Nix at the time, she said.
“That little boy meant the world to me,” she wrote in a GoFundMe. “I miss him so much everyday, it's like a piece of my heart is gone.”
She didn't speak Wednesday, but could be seen wiping away tears as Hester stood in all-yellow, handcuffed.
Hester is being held at Greenville County Detention Center, approximately 17 miles north of his hometown of Pelzer, South Carolina.
A mugshot released Wednesday showed what appeared to be tears in his eyes as he stared into the camera.
“We've lost little Joanna,” Hester's father said. “We lost little Joanna, I just don't want to lose my son. I'm just asking to have mercy on him.”
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