Trial begins for couple accused of starving adopted daughter

Washington State-For Hana Williams, it was a troubled transition from Ethiopia to the promised land of America. She wet the bed, rebelled against her strict Christian parents and was more than they and their seven biological children could handle. Less than 3 years after setting foot in her new Seedro-Woolley home, Hana was dead.

The question before jurors now is did Carri Williams and her husband Larry cause Hana’s death? The devout Christians admittedly did not spare the rod with their children, but prosecutors say they went to terrible extremes, hitting Hana and her younger brother with plastic plumbing pipes, hosing them down with cold water and forcing Hana to sleep in a barn or a four-foot-by-two-foot closet for weeks at a time.

“These things are not discipline or punishment,” said assistant Skagit County prosecutor Rosemary Kaholokula. “They constitute torture.” read more