The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE great-grandmother of murdered toddler Bella Walker says she hopes the child’s mother when she is released from prison will have learned from her mistakes and will raise two of her children differently than how she raised Bella.

On Monday, Ostonya Walker was sentenced to three years in jail for exposing her four-year-old daughter to grievous harm and child cruelty. Bella was beaten to death by her mother’s boyfriend while in his custody.

Walker’s boyfriend, Darion Smith, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the child’s 2021 murder after taking a plea deal earlier this year.

Mary Grant, the child’s paternal great-grandmother, said of Walker’s sentencing yesterday: “I ain’t got no problem with that because I can’t change it no how.”

“Suppose I say I think she should have more time than that. That don’t make no sense because the baby done gone so I’m cool with it. I sing a little song for her and all.”

Ms Grant sang the song “Count Your Blessings,” a piece she said she dedicated to Bella’s mother.

“That’s my song for her,” she said.

Mrs Grant, 81, helped raise Bella from the time she was a two-week-old baby.

She told The Tribune yesterday that the little girl primarily lived with her and her husband in Grand Bahama before she moved to New Providence to be with her mother.

“She didn’t have no stable job,” the elderly woman said of Bella’s mother. “When she leave the baby, she did say that when Bella get four, if she have a good job she’ll come for her.”

“When she turn four in June and come for her in June, she say she had a good job. She was working at the death registrar for government and she had a good apartment, then she say she could’ve sent her to school cuz from three to four, you don’t have to pay so that’s why it was satisfying to me that it was good with her.”

Mrs Grant said she spoke to Bella several times on the phone before her death.

She recalled some of her last conversations with the girl.

She said Bella said: “‘Y’all coming to pick me up, aye?’ So my granddaughter would say ‘no gal, I can’t come;’ and the next time, she say I want to come to the pink house.

“The next time when I talk, she say ‘I ain’t want come to the pink house no more. My mommy buy me a tablet and I eating grapes.’ Well that’s the last time I hear from her.”

Nearly two years later, the 81-year-old still struggles to accept what happened.

“That damage me ya know,” she said. “I don’t feel good at all ya know. This thing what they saying is vertigo –– they tell me that was lack of sleep and there’s no cure for that.”

Nonetheless, Mrs Grant said she has forgiven Bella’s mother.

“When they tell me about the man’s (sentence), I tell them ya know I hear the little voice come to me and say forgive the mother ya know,” she said. “And you have people in relationships, sometimes when you small, you get abusive and it damage people’s minds ya know, but we don’t know this. I see plenty people that come and they would say what happen to them when they was young and they gone to prosecute.”

“So I does put that into consideration and she probably couldn’t do no better.”

She said after giving birth to a girl earlier this year, Walker should be grateful she has another chance to be a better mother.

“The baby has a girl and she has a son,” Mrs Grant said. “Bella wasn’t the oldest.”