The murder trial for the mother and grandmother of Marchella Pierce—the severely malnourished 4-year-old girl who was found dead in her Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment with bruises all over her body last year—began this week. Prosecutors showed the jury shocking photos of Marchella's battered, stick-thin body, with all of her ribs visible—she weighed just 18.9 pounds when she died in Sept. 2010. And today, her six-year-old brother testified—but he didn't repeat his previous claims that his mother, Carlotta Brett-Pierce, forced pills down his sister’s throat and beat her with a belt. He did, however, refer to her as "my old mommy."
The little boy, who turns seven next Monday, wore a tie and vest to court this morning, and testified in another interview room on camera. He said his mom would get "angry" when his sister would wet her bed, but said he said he never saw her beat her with a belt, or tie her to the bed. But when he was asked whether his sister was fed, or ever ate, he replied "Nope" to both questions.
In his opening statements, prosecutor Perry Cerrato described what state Marchella was in when police found her: "Beaten, bound, drugged, dehydrated and starved, that's how Marchella Pierce died." Earlier this year, Detective Matthew Lamendola testified at a hearing that Brett-Pierce admitted to him that she tied up the little girl several times: “Her words were, ‘She was acting crazy and her little ass was wilding out.’” In addition to Brett-Pierce, grandmother Loretta Brett has been charged with manslaughter.
