Coaches Charged With Murder In Heat Death Of Georgia Student

Larosa Walker-Asekere and Dwight Palmer were charged with murder and child cruelty in the death of 16-year-old Imani Bell, a basketball player at Elite Scholars Academy in Clayton County.

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A grand jury has charged two coaches with murder and child cruelty in the death of a Georgia high school basketball player who suffered a heat stroke after practicing outdoors in nearly 100-degree weather, an attorney for the player’s family said Tuesday.

The Atlanta-area grand jury indicted Larosa Walker-Asekere and Dwight Palmer last month, according to court records and news outlets. 

Imani Bell, a 16-year-old junior at Elite Scholars Academy in Clayton County, was participating in required conditioning drills for the girls’ basketball team on August 13, 2019, when she collapsed after running up the football stadium steps, according to a lawsuit her family filed in February against administrators at the school. The temperature was in the high 90s Fahrenheit (more than 35 degrees Celsius), and the area was under a heat advisory.