A Jefferson Parish judge on Tuesday (May 6) sentenced Bunnak “Hannah” Landon to life In prison plus 80 years for her conviction of murdering Bella Fontenelle, the 6-year-old Harahan child who was beaten and strangled before her body was placed in a bucket and left on her biological mother’s front lawn two years ago.
Landon, whose exact age is unknown, was in a cohabitating relationship with Bella’s father. She was convicted by a jury last week of first-degree murder and two counts of obstruction in connection with the crimes that occurred in Harahan’s Imperial Woods subdivision.
Landon was watching Bella and her older sister on the night of April 25, 2023 while their father worked late. In text messages to their father, Landon assured him that she tucked the girls into their beds, and that the tooth fairy had visited Bella’s older sister.
In truth, she had murdered Bella, likely as her sister slept.
“Someday I will forgive you, because I want to be in heaven to see Bella,” Bella’s 9-year-old sister wrote in impact testimony, a statement that her mother read aloud in court Tuesday before Landon received her punishment.
Click here to read about the trial.
Life in prison without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence is the mandatory punishment for first-degree murder under state law. Judge Nancy Miller of the 24th Judicial District Court sentenced Landon to the maximum 40 years for each of the obstruction counts and ran them consecutively.
Judge Miller, who has presided over the case since it was allotted to her court in August 2023, indicated that she was aware of the facts in the case leading up to last week’s trial.
“I can honestly say it was worse than I imagined,” Judge Miller said. She added that “evil was on full display” in her courtroom.
“This court never wants you to see the light of day again,” the judge told Landon in defending the consecutive sentences.
Landon was convicted of obstruction for tampering with evidence to hinder the investigation. She removed Bella’s body from the crime scene, which was her father’s Donelon Drive home and the crime scene. After leaving Bella’s body on her mother’s front lawn, Landon buried her cell phone in a vacant lot in the subdivision.
During Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Miller received seven victim-impact testimony sentences and heard three of them, beginning with Bella’s father. He shared custody of Bella and her older sister with their biological mother, “until Bella was brutally murdered on the night of April 25, 2023, and placed in a bucket like a piece of trash, then dumped on (her mother’s) front yard as if she were to be picked up” by Harahan’s waste disposal contractor.
After reading the statement written by Bella’s sister, her mother testified about the private, simple life she lived before her second-born was taken from her. After the highly publicized crime, she became the target of internet “trolls” who viciously criticized her in social media commentary.
“I did everything in my power to protect my child,” she said in testimony aimed at the trolls.
To Landon, she said, “You made a decision that changed the course of all our lives. Not only did you condemn me and my family to a life sentence of pain and sadness, but you also condemned (Bella’s sister) to a life of not getting to know her sister past the age of six. (Bella’s sister) no longer has a sister to fight with, to share secrets with, to confide in, to share her first kiss, to make matron of honor at her wedding, to become an aunt and Godmother to her children.”
Assistant District Attorneys Rachel Africk, Lindsay Truhe and Alyssa Aleman prosecuted the case.