Bella Seachrist died on June 9, 2020. Alexis Herrera, 24, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a general charge of criminal murder in connection with her death.
The court says that three adults beat and killed Bella Rae Seachrist, who was 3 years old when killed.
An ugly murder of a three-year-old girl will finally see the third and final person sent to jail. She is a 24-year-old woman from Pennsylvania.
Court papers say that Alexis Herrera will go to prison with her sister and brother-in-law after admitting to several crimes connected to the murder of young Bella Rae Seachrist.
Herrera admitted to committing aggravated assault, putting the safety of a child in danger, unlawful restraint, and a plot to commit criminal homicide. He also admitted to one count of general criminal homicide.
In the summer of 2020, police found the little girl unconscious in a bathroom. She had been beaten and starved by three people. Herrera pleaded guilty this week to a charge of murder for her part in the child’s death.
Herrera will give in to Allegheny County Judge Bruce R. Beemer’s will by pleading guilty to the more general charge of “open-ended homicide.” He will not be pleading guilty to a specific charge of first-degree, second-degree, or manslaughter.
At an undetermined “degree of guilt hearing,” Beemer will oversee the presentation of evidence by both sides regarding Herrera’s level of guilt, or lack thereof, in Bella’s murder. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says the judge will now decide if she was guilty of first-degree murder, third-degree murder, or manslaughter without intent.
Herrera, her sister Laura Ramirez, and her brother-in-law Jose Salazar-Ortiz Sr. will all go to jail for killing Bella. The punishment for Herrera could be anywhere from 10 years to life in prison without the chance of parole.
When Salazar-Ortiz, Bella’s real father, went to court without a jury, he was found guilty of third-degree murder, aggravated violence, endangering the welfare of children, and conspiracy. In August 2023, he was given a prison term of 33 to 66 years.
In the same way, Beemer found Ramirez, Bella’s stepmother and the main person responsible for the abuse and torture, guilty of first-degree murder and gave her a life term plus an extra 37 to 74 years. According to the police, Bella was “tortured” and “looked like a child from a concentration camp” before she died.
A press release from the Allegheny County Police Department says that on the afternoon of June 9, 2020, police were called to a home on Tenth Street because someone said that a three-year-old girl, later named Bella, was “unresponsive” in a bathtub.
“When the police and paramedics got there, the baby looked like it was very hungry and hurt.” According to the press release, the child was taken to a nearby hospital by police and emergency medical workers. There, they tried to save the child’s life but had to declare the child dead.
Police say the victim “suffered from prolonged physical and mental abuse.” Salazar-Ortiz, Ramriez, and Herrera were all to blame.
The medical inspector who did Bella’s autopsy said that she died because she had been severely abused and neglected for a long time. She was also killed. The three-year-old was so skinny that her bones could be seen through her skin and her hair was falling out. It looked like Bella was about four years old, but she weighed less than thirty pounds.