GWINNETT COUNTY — A Gwinnett County jury is now hearing the case of a woman accused of fatally beating her girlfriend’s young daughter in 2021.

Battered and malnourished: That’s how a Gwinnett County prosecutor describes eight-year-old Amari Hall whose 54 pound body was wrapped in trash bags and dumped in the woods.

Gwinnett County prosecutors launched their opening statement showing jurors video of the abuse they say 8-year-old Amari Hall and her little brother and sister endured at the hands of defendant Celeste Owens. But Owens’s defense attorney Robert Greenwald puts the blame on their mother who was in a relationship with Owens.

The mother, Brittany Hall faces trial later.

The State says it doesn’t matter who dealt the fatal blow because Amari suffered from Battered Child Syndrome, a series of injuries leading to her death.

Defense attorney Robert Greenwald says there is no evidence that Celeste Owens struck a fatal blow.