The body of six-year-old Bella Fontanelle was found stuffed in a ten-gallon chlorine bucket covered by a lid outside her mother’s home in Harahan, Louisiana, on Wednesday, April 26, at 8:20 a.m., as first reported by the DailyMail.
Video footage from neighbor Ken Livaudais’s camera appears to show Bunnak “Hannah” Landon, 43, — the longtime live-in girlfriend of the victim’s father — pushing the bucket in a wagon for half a mile before dumping it on Jennifer Zeledon’s lawn the night before.
“To know that she was pulling a little baby stuffed into a bucket makes you physically ill,” Livaudais told NOLA.com.
The morning of the body’s discovery, Michael Fontanelle called the police to report Bella and Landon missing while his seven-year-old daughter was still in the house. Authorities have interviewed him and cleared him of having any connection to his daughter’s death.
With Fontanelle’s house less than a block away from Zeledon’s, authorities checked her property during their search, and that is where Bella’s remains were discovered in the fetal position inside the bucket.
An autopsy by coroner Gerry Cvitanovich confirmed the cause of death as “manual strangulation, with blunt force trauma to the head,” FOX 8 reports.
According to authorities, Landon requested medical attention at a police station after dumping the body. She was found and arrested later Wednesday at a hospital. Landon is charged with first-degree murder and obstruction of justice in Bella’s death. She is being held without bail.
While no motive is known yet, police records show that both Landon and Bella’s mother Zeledon have a history of physical altercations between each other. During a swim meet in 2021, Landon blocked Zeledon’s sister from hugging Bella. According to the police report obtained from NOLA.com, Landon allegedly left Zeledon with scratches on her face and hand.
Landon was given a municipal summons for simple battery and filed a restraining order against Zeledon.
Bella’s heinous death has left her family and community in utter despair.
“This senseless and heinous act has forever destroyed my family,” Bianca Cano, Bella’s aunt, wrote in a GoFundMe for Zeledon, her sister.
“No words can describe the pain that is running through our bodies,” she continued. “It’s truly inhumane.”
The GoFundMe for Bella’s funeral costs has raised over $35,000.