'Unforgivable': Final defendant gets life sentence in starvation death of Oakmont girl

Throughout her prosecution for killing a 3-year-old girl, Alexis Herrera blamed her actions — starving, assaulting and torturing the child — on her sister, Laura Ramriez.

It was Ramriez who hated Bella Seachrist, a child born from her husband’s affair.

It was Ramriez who first started abusing the child in January 2020 and then egged Herrera on — encouraging her to hurt the little girl and take pictures of the abuse.

But during the last week of Bella’s life, Ramriez and her husband, Jose Salazar-Ortiz Jr., went out of town, leaving Bella and their other children home alone in Oakmont with Herrera.

The abuse continued.

“What is always unforgivable to me is that Alexis Herrera was alone with Bella and those children for the last week — when she had a chance to stand up and save this child’s life,” said Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer DiGiovanni. “And she didn’t do it.”

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On Tuesday, like her sister, Herrera was sentenced to serve the rest of her life in prison with no chance for parole after being found guilty of first-degree murder in March.

“The reality of how that house operated from January to June 2020 required Laura Ramriez to have someone help her carry out this plan of torture, abuse and starvation,” said Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Bruce Beemer. “That could not happen without you, Ms. Herrera.”

Abuse followed

Bella died June 9, 2020, but investigators said she had been abused for months.

Bella, who was nearly 4, weighed just 20 pounds when police were called to her home that day and found her in an upstairs bathtub.

An autopsy found she died from starvation and dehydration.

Until September 2019, Bella had lived with family in North Carolina and was healthy. But when she went to live with her father and Ramriez in Oakmont, police said, abuse followed soon after.

She became the target of prolonged maltreatment by Ramriez, who was then joined in January 2020 by Herrera when she moved into the 10th Street home.

Police charged Ramriez, Herrera and Salazar-Ortiz Jr. with criminal homicide. Beemer found Ramriez guilty of first-degree murder, requiring a mandatory life term, while Salazar-Ortiz was convicted of third-degree murder. He was sentenced to serve 33 to 66 years in prison.

While Herrera pleaded guilty to a general count of criminal homicide, the parties held a trial to determine her degree of guilt.

During testimony, the prosecution presented hundreds of text messages, photos and videos of the abuse.

Bella with her feet bound by shoelaces.

Bella being forced to stand, stooped over under a shelf in a closet.

Bella confined in a bed frame.

Bella required to sit on the potty for hours.

Bella being called dehumanizing names.

Herrera’s defense attorney, Michael Machen, argued his client was unable to form the specific intent to kill. He presented testimony from experts that Herrera has an intellectual disability and an array of mental health diagnoses, including post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.

But Beemer didn’t buy it.

“This is one of the most disturbing, horrific, troubling cases the court has ever seen or presided over,” Beemer said Tuesday. “What happened to that defenseless, scared, tortured 3-year-old child in that house is beyond shocking and horrific.”

The defendant speaks

Machen argued during the sentencing hearing that life without parole for his client — when she did not have the intent to kill — was unconstitutional under the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

But DiGiovanni asked the court to impose the mandatory sentence as required by Pennsylvania law, which Beemer did.

“Quite frankly, the person that was treated so cruelly in this case is Bella Seachrist, who would soon be turning 9 years old,” the prosecutor said.

While the Allegheny County Police Department detectives and Oakmont police officers who worked the case attended the sentencing, no one was there to give a victim impact statement on Bella’s loss.

No one spoke for Herrera either, although she did address the court briefly.

“I never wanted any of this to happen,” she said, crying at the defense table. “I’m sorry. I have to live with this every day of my life, and that’s probably the worst punishment anyone could give me.”

Beemer was unmoved, noting Herrera’s agreement with Ramriez “every day to deprive this child of food, of warmth, of love, of any human kindness.”

“You may be remorseful,” the judge continued, “but that remorse certainly wasn’t present in February, March, April, May and June when that child lay in that tub trying to be resuscitated by medics.”