A 4-year-old South Carolina girl whose body was found inside a plastic storage bin behind her home earlier this year died from asphyxiation after she was trapped in the container, a coroner said Tuesday. Joanna Lockaby’s death in Pelzer was deemed a homicide after the Greenville County Coroner’s Office said an autopsy showed she was still alive when she was trapped in the container. After Lockaby’s body was found on July 19 by a search and rescue team, her half-brother, William Micah Hester, 17, was charged with murder. Lockaby was found about an hour after her parents reported her missing, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. At a bond hearing in July, Hester’s father insisted his son was “a good boy,” adding: “Micah would not do anything like this on purpose. I know my boy. He loves his sister.” The judge denied bond. In 2018, Lockaby’s older brother, Joe Lockaby, died when he was just 18 months old after being left in a car by his grandmother.
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