A Gwinnett County mother and her girlfriend were each denied bond Wednesday and will remain in jail on charges related to the killing of their 8-year-old daughter.
Amari Hall was reported missing in late November by her mother, Brittany Hall, two days before her body was discovered in a shallow grave, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
But before the girl’s body was found, Brittany Hall and her domestic partner, Celeste Owens, had been arrested on multiple charges. Those charges were both upgraded to include murder.
In a hearing months after their arrests, both women were denied bond after prosecutors presented evidence that Amari had been beaten to death, Channel 2 Action News reported.
The Gwinnett medical examiner ruled that the girl’s cause of death was battered child syndrome, the news station reported. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, battered child syndrome is an accumulation of injuries and trauma resulting from repeated physical abuse.
Prior to Amari’s death, Hall and Owens had been investigated multiple times for alleged incidents of child abuse, the AJC previously reported.
According to Channel 2, Gwinnett police said they found videos on one of the women’s cellphones of both Hall and Owens abusing Amari and her siblings. The women were arrested after police said they realized their statements about Amari’s disappearance did not match. Owens was arrested first, followed by Hall a day later.
At their bond hearing, the judge told the couple they would remain in jail because they were “a risk to intimidate witnesses,” Channel 2 reported.
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