'Essentially waterboarded': Woman was 'matriarch' of human trafficking operation where children were forced to clean medical clinics or face 'horrific' abuse, authorities say

A South Carolina pistillate was denied enslaved this week successful an ongoing quality trafficking lawsuit brought connected by the decease of an 11-year-old.

Margaret Roberson, 57, stands accused of 5 counts of trafficking successful persons, 3 counts of unlawful behaviour toward a child, and 1 number of transgression conspiracy, according to the Horry County Sheriff's Office.

The underlying incidents day backmost to January 2025, authorities say. Roberson and Camisha Marie McGaskey, 32, allegedly forced 5 minors to cleanable aesculapian clinics successful and astir Conway – a tiny metropolis located immoderate 15 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach.

In June 2025, the alleged abuse came to airy erstwhile McGaskey was arrested for the murder of 11-year-old A'Kyri Bell. The miss from Texas was staying with the defendants connected Sago Palm Drive successful Carolina Forest, a census-designated spot betwixt Conway and Myrtle Beach.

"This was a horrific crime," Horry County Police Chief Kris Leonhardtt said astatine a property league reported by Florence-based CBS affiliate WBTW. "This mediocre 11-year-old unfortunate suffered aggregate injuries. If you spot these types of things successful our community, please, please, study these things."

McGaskey and 2 different defendants – Lakesha Burnett, 34, and Alantis Thomas, 22 – were initially charged with obstruction of justice. Additional charges came aboriginal for the different defendants. Meanwhile, McGaskey, A'Kyri ineligible guardian, had her charges upgraded to murder.

A full of six adults are present charged successful the case.

As the probe continued, the quality trafficking charges were leveled against Roberson, who prosecutors referred to arsenic the "matriarch of the house," during a proceeding this week, according to a courtroom study by Myrtle Beach-based NBC affiliate WMBF.

Leigh Waller, an lawyer for the state, described however maltreatment would allegedly beryllium meted retired to the children who lived successful the house.

"They said if they didn't cleanable they – Camisha McGaskey – they would get what they called 'the precocious country treatment' … erstwhile a kid would beryllium taken into a bathroom, the upstairs bathroom, and fundamentally waterboarded," the authoritative told the court.

The state's lawyer said determination are videos of the maltreatment occurring. Those videos allegedly implicate Roberson.

"Margaret Roberson sits successful the videos and watches, portion she sits successful her bedroom," Waller told the justice connected Thursday.

During the enslaved hearing, 1 alleged unfortunate said Roberson knew astir the maltreatment and "thought it was funny."

A defence lawyer for Roberson disputed his client's cognition of immoderate specified maltreatment – and besides took contented with claims that the children successful the location had been quality trafficked nether the law.

"The information that it's forced labour conscionable doesn't look to beryllium verified by the grounds that I've seen," Morgan Martin, Roberson's lawyer, told the court. "I deliberation that determination are situations wherever children tin beryllium working, oregon asked to work, oregon told to work, that doesn't magnitude to quality trafficking, due to the fact that that's got a wholly antithetic explanation to it."

The defence lawyer besides said the facts astir the enactment are murky.

"Nobody from Conway hospital, cipher different than these children, who springiness contradictory statements, the each of them, frankly, astir precisely what was happening with regards with their going to Conway infirmary to work," Martin went on.

A'Kyri died connected June 11, 2025. She was recovered by authorities and rushed to a infirmary that time wherever she succumbed to blunt unit injuries.

Authorities judge A'Kyri was 1 of 5 children trafficked by McGaskey and Roberson. Additionally, prosecutors allege Burnett, Alantis Thomas, Alexandria Thomas, 20, and Darnell Dearmas, 21, "contributed to the circumstances that led to the homicide."