A Louisiana woman accused of killing her boyfriend’s 6-year-old daughter and leaving the child’s body in a bucket outside the home where the girl’s mother lives has been jailed without bond in a New Orleans suburb, authorities said.
Bunnak Landon, 43, of Harahan, was booked Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder and obstruction of justice in connection with the death of Bella Fontenelle, jail records show.
Landon, who is also known as Hannah Landon and Bunnak Lim, is on suicide watch at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Centre in Gretna and did not appear for a hearing Thursday in Jefferson Parish Magistrate Court, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.
The Jefferson Parish Public Defender’s Office was appointed to represent her, the newspaper reported. A telephone call seeking comment on her behalf was not immediately returned.
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Sheriff Joseph Lopinto told news outlets that Landon and the child’s father share a home in Harahan about two blocks from the child’s mother’s home. The victim’s father notified police his daughter was missing after he woke up Wednesday morning.
Harahan Police began searching the neighborhood and found the child’s body in a 10-gallon bucket on the front lawn of the child’s mothers home, according to the the sheriff.
An autopsy determined the child’s death was a homicide. Initially, Jefferson Parish Coroner Dr. Gerry Cvitanovich did not release details on how the child died to first share the results with the family before releasing it to the public.
“Preliminary findings show the cause of death to be manual strangulation along with blunt force injuries to the head,” Cvitanovich said in a statement Thursday.
Cvitanovich added that the child’s body was intact.
Surveillance video from a home in the neighborhood showed a woman, who authorities say is Landon, pulling the bucket in a wagon on the street leading toward the home of Fontenelle’s mother about 9.35pm. on Tuesday.
“We believe Bella was killed at the father’s house and then transported over to the mother’s house,” Lopinto said.
Landon showed up at the police department’s headquarters early Wednesday, shortly after midnight. She was taken to an area hospital for an evaluation but authorities did not say what she did or what prompted officers to seek the medical review, the newspaper reported.
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