MOUNT VERNON, Wash — The Sedro-Woolley parents accused abusing their adopted daughter to death listened to damaging court testimony on Monday from their adopted son.
Less than three years after arriving in Sedro-Woolley from Ethiopia, Hana Williams was dead. Her adoptive parents, Carri and Larry Williams, were charged with abusing the teen to death.
On Monday, Hana’s 12-year-old brother Emanuel took the stand to recount the horrors he said he and his sister had to live with.
Through an interpreter, Emanuel described being repeatedly beaten and punished with a water hose.
“They would beat me very hard,” he said.
Hana died in May 2012, and prosecutors say Larry and Carri Williams starved, beat and neglected the girl. The day she died, they allegedly banished her to the back yard on a rainy, 40-degree day.
Prosecutors say Hana didn’t have enough clothing and lost consciousness in the mud. Carri Williams told a 911 operator she thought Hana killed herself.
“She’s been throwing herself all around and then she collapsed,” she said.
The parents are now accused of homicide-by-abuse.
“It was the same for my sister,” Emanuel said. “The father would use a beating stick to beat us.”
Emanuel said the beatings got worse over time, telling the jurors his parents often punished the kids outside with a water hose.
“If we wet bed, peed the bed, they would use a water hose all over us, spray our bodies,” he said.
He said he wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom without an escort, and said no part of his body was immune to the beatings.
“They would hit me on the bottom of my feet and around the toes as well,” he said. “They would just hit really hard.”
Emanuel said he witnessed Hana’s beatings and described her as “sad and unhappy.” When asked what happened to her, Emanuel said, “I don’t know. She’s disappeared.” He said he thinks she’s dead.
At one point defense attorneys asked for a mistrial, which the judge denied.
Emanuel testified on Monday that his father had touched his private parts, but that was stricken and the jury was told to disregard it. The prosecutor thought the boy was referring to Larry checking to see if he had wet his pants and nothing more sinister
On Monday, Hana’s 12-year-old brother Emanuel took the stand to recount the horrors he said he and his sister had to live with.
Through an interpreter, Emanuel described being repeatedly beaten and punished with a water hose.
“They would beat me very hard,” he said.
Hana died in May 2012, and prosecutors say Larry and Carri Williams starved, beat and neglected the girl. The day she died, they allegedly banished her to the back yard on a rainy, 40-degree day.
Hana
“She’s been throwing herself all around and then she collapsed,” she said.
The parents are now accused of homicide-by-abuse.
“It was the same for my sister,” Emanuel said. “The father would use a beating stick to beat us.”
Emanuel said the beatings got worse over time, telling the jurors his parents often punished the kids outside with a water hose.
“If we wet bed, peed the bed, they would use a water hose all over us, spray our bodies,” he said.
He said he wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom without an escort, and said no part of his body was immune to the beatings.
“They would hit me on the bottom of my feet and around the toes as well,” he said. “They would just hit really hard.”
Emanuel said he witnessed Hana’s beatings and described her as “sad and unhappy.” When asked what happened to her, Emanuel said, “I don’t know. She’s disappeared.” He said he thinks she’s dead.
At one point defense attorneys asked for a mistrial, which the judge denied.
Emanuel testified on Monday that his father had touched his private parts, but that was stricken and the jury was told to disregard it. The prosecutor thought the boy was referring to Larry checking to see if he had wet his pants and nothing more sinister
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