A 45-year-old woman in Louisiana has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her boyfriend’s 6-year-old daughter. She stuffed the child’s remains into a large plastic bucket and used a wagon to transport it to the victim’s mother’s house, leaving it on the front lawn.
On Thursday, a Jefferson Parish jury found Bunnak “Hannah” Landon guilty of one count of first-degree murder in the death of Bella Fontenelle.
Jurors also convicted Landon of two counts of obstruction of justice for moving Bella’s body and disposing of her cellphone following the crime. According to state law, Landon will be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
In February, the Louisiana Supreme Court voted 6-1 to uphold a lower-court ruling that Landon was fit to stand trial for beating and strangling the girl to death.
Despite the ruling, Landon’s defense attorneys maintained that she was mentally ill and unaware of her actions during the murder, as reported by The New Orleans Advocate.
Her defense attorney, Cesar Vazquez, admitted that surveillance footage showed Landon wheeling Bella’s body to her mother’s home on the night of the murder, telling jurors that it was “about as insane as things get.”
However, prosecutors disputed this notion, emphasizing the “calculated decisions” involved in the murder and noting that it occurred one day after Bella reportedly told her father and a counselor that she was afraid of Landon, who was always “mean” to her.
“This is not a woman who is so out of her element. “This is a woman who is pissed off and evil,” Jefferson Parish Assistant District Attorney Rachel Africk reportedly stated in court. “There are numerous reasons we know Hannah Landon was aware that what she was doing was wrong. It’s ridiculously long. These were deliberate decisions made by an unfathomably evil woman.”
Prosecutors also claimed that Landon hated Bella because of the attention the child received from her father.
“She was an impediment.” “She gets rid of Bella because she is an impediment, not a human,” prosecutors allegedly stated in closing arguments.
In addition to burying her phone, Landon allegedly Googled information about criminal defense attorneys, sent farewell text messages to family and friends, and told a friend she was “at peace” with her decision. Even after the murder, prosecutors claim she kept texting her boyfriend about the child’s schedule and meals.
“Bella is dead, and Hannah is texting Michael like nothing is wrong,” Assistant District Attorney Lindsay Truhe told jurors. “Are these the texts of somebody who’s crazy, who doesn’t know right from wrong?”
The jury reportedly deliberated for less than an hour before reaching its decision.
In April 2023, Bella’s father discovered his daughter and girlfriend missing from their home in Harahan, 10 miles west of New Orleans, as previously reported by Law&Crime.
The father arrived at the Harahan Police Station around 7:30 a.m. and reported the two missing. Approximately 15 minutes later, officers arrived at the family’s home on Donelon Drive and began looking for the missing woman and child.
At about 8:20 a.m., the investigation moved to Bella’s biological mother’s home on Sedgefield Drive, which is just around the corner and less than two blocks from Bella’s father’s house.
“At the Sedgefield location, officers discovered the victim’s remains inside a large plastic bucket in the front yard,” police said in a news release at the time. “The victim was pronounced dead on the scene.”
Following Landon’s arrest, police contacted the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and the Major Crimes Task Force took over the investigation into Bella’s death, according to Sheriff Joseph Lopinto. Authorities later determined that Bella had been beaten and strangled to death.
JPSO investigators say they quickly identified Landon, an Asian female known by the names “Bunnak Lim” and “Bunnak Landon,” as the primary suspect in the case.
While looking for Landon, the sheriff’s office obtained Ring doorbell surveillance footage from neighbors in the area, which showed Landon late the previous night “pulling a wagon containing a bucket down both Donelon and Sedgefield Drives.” Landon was on his way to the home of Bella’s biological mother.
At 9:33 p.m., Landon casually walked down the street with the wagon and bucket, making no attempt to hide the dead child, even as a white minivan drove right past her.
“We believe Bella was killed at the father’s house and then transported over to the mother’s house and then taken out of a wagon,” according to Lopinto.
Following an investigation and “extensive” interviews with Bella’s biological mother and father, authorities stated that they do not believe either parent was involved in their daughter’s death.
As the search for Landon continued, detectives were notified around 2 p.m. that he had been admitted to a local hospital. Authorities said Landon walked into the Harahan Police Department after midnight and “was eventually transported to the hospital for evaluation.”
After being released, Landon was booked into Jefferson Parish Jail.
Landon is currently scheduled to appear in court for her sentencing hearing on May 7, 2025.
