Chelsea Duperon is seen smirking and even letting out a giggle at one point in the proceedings, during which authorities detailed how she allegedly beat 8-year-old Lyla Cassel to death.
A Michigan mother smirked in court while being arraigned for allegedly beating her daughter to death.
Chelsea Duperon, 30, appeared before a judge on Tuesday and was charged with felony murder and first-degree child abuse in the death of 8-year-old Lyla Cassel.
Video shows Duperon smirking at one point during the proceedings, during which she entered a plea of not guilty to both charges.
Police officers were dispatched to the family’s home on March 16 after receiving a report of a child not breathing, according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
There they found Lyla unresponsive and suffering from multiple injuries in a bedroom of the home, according to prosecutors.
Medics then rushed Lyla to a local hospital where doctors declared the girl dead.
Prosecutor Erin Wilmoth said on Tuesday that Lyla’s fatal beating occurred three days before her death.
“The sheer brutality that innocent 8-year-old Lyla suffered on March 13, 2024 is like nothing I've seen in my five years of handling child abuse cases,” Wilmoth said in court.
The cause of the young girl’s death was “massive, massive blunt force trauma,” said Wilmoth, who noted that the severity of the beating had left Lyla “completely unrecognizable.”
Wilmoth also said that after beating her daughter, Duperon then left the home to purchase liquor for herself and diapers for her daughter because the girl was unable to make it to the bathroom.
“All while her daughter is dying a slow, slow death,” Wilmoth said.
Duperon allegedly told officers that her daughter had fallen down the stairs before changing her story and claiming that the girl had been possessed by a spirit or ghost, a member of law enforcement told the judge.
"I swear to god this is not me. This sounds crazy, but there's bad spirits," Duperon allegedly told officers according to the testimony of Sgt. Jason Walters, who also appeared in court on Tuesday.
Duperon went on to tell officers that "there was a lady who came out of nowhere," testified Walters.
Duperon’s boyfriend, who has not been charged with a crime, said he came home from work on Wednesday to find the girl lying on the floor with water all around her, according to Sgt. Walters.
The judge on Tuesday ordered Duperon to be held without bail and undergo a psychological evaluation. Her lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
