Inset: Bunnak Landon (Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office): Background: Landon on surveillance footage dragging a wagon that allegedly contained the body of her boyfriend’s daughter (JPSO).
A 45-year-old woman in Louisiana will spend the rest of her life behind bars for killing her boyfriend’s 6-year-old daughter, stuffing the child’s remains into a large plastic bucket, then using a wagon to transport the bucket to the victim’s mother’s house where she left it on the front lawn. A Jefferson Parish jury on Thursday found Bunnak “Hannah” Landon guilty on one count of first-degree murder in the slaying of young Bella Fontenelle.
Jurors also convicted Landon on two counts of obstruction of justice for moving Bella’s body and disposing of her cellphone after the crime. Under state law, Landon will face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The verdict came after the Louisiana Supreme Court in February voted 6-1 to uphold a lower-court ruling declaring Landon fit to stand trial for beating and strangling the little girl to death.
Despite the ruling, Landon’s defense attorneys continued to assert that she was mentally ill and unaware of her actions during the murder, The New Orleans Advocate reported. Her defense attorney, Cesar Vazquez, conceded that surveillance footage showed Landon wheeling Bella’s body to her mother’s home on the night of the murder, telling jurors it was “about as insane as things get.”
But prosecutors pushed back on that notion, reportedly emphasizing the “calculated decisions” involved in the murder and noting that it took place one day after Bella reportedly told her father and a counselor that she was afraid of Landon, who was always “mean” to her.
“This isn’t a woman who is so outside of her faculties. This is a woman who is pissed off and evil,” Jefferson Parish Assistant District Attorney Rachel Africk reportedly argued in court. “The list of reasons we know that Hannah Landon knew what she was doing was wrong is lengthy. It’s ridiculously lengthy. These were calculated decisions made by an incomprehensibly evil woman.”
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Prosecutors also posited that Landon hated Bella because of the attention the child garnered from her father.
“She was an impediment. She gets rid of Bella because she is an impediment, not a human,” prosecutors reportedly said in closing arguments.
In addition to burying her phone, Landon also reportedly Googled information about criminal defense attorneys, sent farewell text messages to family and friends, and told a friend that she was “at peace” with her decision. Even after the murder, prosecutors said she continued texting with 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 a verdict.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, Bella’s father, in April 2023, awoke to find his daughter and girlfriend were both missing from his home in Harahan, about 10 miles west of New Orleans.
The father arrived at the Harahan Police Station at about 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 investigating the whereabouts of the missing woman and child.
At about 8:20 a.m., the investigation moved to the home of Bella’s biological mother on Sedgefield Drive, which is only around the corner and less than two blocks away from Bella’s father’s residence.
“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.”
Police then contacted the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and the agency’s Major Crimes Task Force assumed responsibility for the investigation into Bella’s death, Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said after Landon’s arrest. Authorities later determined that Bella was beaten and strangled to death.
JPSO investigators say they quickly honed in on Landon, who the sheriff’s office described as an Asian female who also goes by the names “Bunnak Lim” and “Bunnak Landon,” as the primary suspect in the case.
While attempting to locate Landon, the sheriff’s office obtained Ring doorbell surveillance footage from neighbors in the area that showed Landon late the previous night “pulling a wagon containing a bucket down both Donelon and Sedgefield Drives.” Landon was traveling toward the home of Bella’s biological mother.
The chilling video showed Landon at 9:33 p.m. casually walking down the street with the wagon and bucket in tow, making no attempts to hide the dead child, even when a white minivan drives 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,” Lopinto said
Following an investigation and “extensive” interviews with Bella’s biological mother and father, authorities said that they do not believe either parent had a hand in their daughter’s death.
As the search for Landon continued, detectives at about 2 p.m. were notified that Landon had been admitted to a local hospital. Authorities said that Landon walked into the Harahan Police Department sometime after midnight and “was eventually transported to the hospital for evaluation.”
After being discharged, Landon was booked into the Jefferson Parish Jail.
Landon is currently scheduled to appear in court again for her sentencing hearing on May 7, 2025.
