17 years after the death of his sister and his testimony of his mother being the culprit behind the tragedy, A.J. Hutto, now 24, broke his silence on addressing the court as a 7-year-old child.
When he took the witness stand nearly two decades ago, all eyes were on him as his sister’s death was a case that had gained the nation’s attention.
That day in 2008, he testified that “mama got mad” and “dunked” his sister, 7, in the pool — today, he still stands behind his words, claiming his mother, Amanda Lewis, is “100% guilty.”
On 8 August 2007, A.J.’s sister, Adrianna Elaine Hutto, was found unresponsive in her family’s pool in Esto, Florida.
Lewis was the one who called emergency services, telling them her daughter wasn’t breathing. They transported her to Bay Medical Hospital where they pronounced her dead an hour later.
According to Lewis’ testimony, she finished her night shift at the nursing home where she worked as a nurse and took a quick nap while the kids watched cartoons.
They were about to go shopping for school supplies later, but as the temperature exceeded 100 degrees, A.J. and Adrianna wanted to go in the pool, which was a 4-foot deep, above-ground pool and off limits to the kids without adult supervision.
Lewis claimed A.J. entered the house and told her Adrianna was in the pool, but Lewis believed she meant somewhere around it as the pool ladder was kept locked in the shed and told him to tell her to get inside the house.
A.J. got out and when Lewis looked out the back door, she saw her son “raking in the water with his hand, like he was trying to grab her.”
“When I got to the pool … she was face down… She was very purple, very blue,” Lewis said of her daughter. It was then that she called the emergency services.
At first, authorities believed the girl’s drowning was an accident.
However, six months later, 7-year-old A.J. entered a courtroom full of strangers and explained what had really happened on that faithful day and testified against his own mother.
Previously, in an interview with the police, he said, “Mama dunked my sister. She done some stuff that she ain’t suppose so my mama got mad, so she throwed her in the pool,” and now his mother’s fate rested in his tiny hands.
A.J. made a drawing of the day his sister died. When asked to identify the figures he had drawn, he pointed to one and said it was his mom killing his sister.
“How is she doing that?” he was asked. “Putting her hand over her face,” A.J. told the courtroom.
On his drawing, he included the words “she did,” and “too bad.” He then explained that his sister died and it was too scary.
The jury found Lewis guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Following the incident, A.J. went into a new home. No one really knew where he was or what he was doing.
Until now.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, A.J., who is now working as a firefighter, said he wasn’t “coached or anything like that” for the trial and only realized that his testimony determined his mother’s fate when he reached his teenage years.
“I just told them exactly what I saw word for word,” he said and added that as a child, he was “really, really nervous…Having all those people looking at you and all that. But I was just glad it was over.”
He also spoke of his childhood and described it as “darkness, trauma, and a lot of abuse.”
He claimed he and his late sister suffered physical abuse.
I went viral for telling a court aged 7 that my mom drowned my sister. I’m ending my silence 17 years later https://t.co/3ki6AN2GeD pic.twitter.com/eSz0RJ3qju
— Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) April 6, 2025
For him, it all changed when a loving family adopted him.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had to talk about it, so I kind of remember some things about my previous life.
“And for the most part, I remember the abuse. Sometimes we wouldn’t even see it coming. It was literally sometimes we were blindsided,” he said of him and Adrianna, who was his “best friend.”
Ever since he testified against his mother, when he was just 7, he hasn’t seen her.
“It’s court appointed that we cannot see each other, and I’ve wanted to keep it that way, just so nothing’s getting brought back up… all the feelings and emotions and the traumas getting brought back into light,” he said.
A.J. added, “It was heartbreaking. You know, she’s my mother. But there was also some relief that what we were going through at the time was finally coming to an end.”
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