Ariel Robinson: 'Worst Cooks in America' winner, husband allegedly beat 3-year-old daughter to death
GREENVILLE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA: Three-year-old Victoria Smith bounced around the foster care system before a married South Carolina couple, Ariel and Jerry Robinson, adopted her in 2020. Ariel is known for winning Season 20 of Food Network's 'Worst Cooks in America'. The same Ariel, with her husband Jerry, are the alleged killers of their adopted daughter, Victoria, claim the police.
According to NBC 4, a judge denied bond on January 20 for Ariel, 29, and Jerry, 34. Both of them are currently behind bars facing homicide by child abuse charges. Court documents reveal authorities found Victoria unresponsive in their Simpsonville home, off Sellwood Circle. The little girl was taken to the Prisma Health Greenville Memorial Hospital, where she passed away. Autopsy reports indicated death from multiple injuries caused by blunt force trauma.
Ariel, a former teacher at the Sanders Middle School in Simpsonville, won $25,000 from the 'Worst Cooks in America' in August last year. "I just know that the Lord had his hands on me and he had a purpose for me to go on there,” she had said the summer before her big win. “He knew we were going through this adoption, we really could use the money and he just let everything work out for our good.”
In an interview with Greenville News last year, Ariel shared that Victoria and her two siblings had moved in with the couple in March, after they adopted all three children. Before Victoria went to the Robinsons, Tiffany Huggins has fostered her for around 10 months. She told NBC 4 “When she (Victoria) entered a room, all eyes were on her because she demanded it and she was a cutie." Huggins also added Victoria's "smile was contagious and she enjoyed singing and riding her bike," reports the outlet.
In their statement following the couple's arrest, the South Carolina Department of Social Services said: "The South Carolina Department of Social Services is aware of allegations and the arrests made and is investigating along with law enforcement. The agency’s standard procedures in a case like this involved taking appropriate action with any children remaining in the home after evaluating safety and risk.”
Currently, SLED, local authorities, and the coroner’s office are all investigating the crime. “Police officers handle all kinds of cases, and this kind of cases can be the hardest for them to do,” Simpsonville police spokesman Justin Lee Campbell said in a statement to the press. "You bring charges and maybe convictions, but at the end of the day the life of a child was taken.”
This comes after a West Virginia mom shot her three sons and two stepchildren in the head, and burned their whole house down including herself in a tragic murder suicide. As reported by MEAWW, Oreanna Antoinette Myers killed one-year-old Haiken Jirachi Myers, Arikyle Nova Myers, 3, Kian Myers, 4, Riley James Bumgarner, 6, and Shaun Dawson Bumgarner, 7 on December 8, 2020, before taking her own life. The children's bodies were found inside the home and Myers' outside.