He was just seven — a small, trembling boy in a courtroom far too big for his tiny shoulders. Dressed in a buttoned shirt and sweater vest, his eyes welled up with tears too heavy for his age. Yet, against all odds, he found his voice. On that day in 2008, A.J. stood up and spoke the truth that no child should ever have to carry: his mother had drowned his sister.
Seventeen years have passed since that life-altering moment. A.J., now 24 and a firefighter, is finally sharing the burden he’s carried ever since. “She’s 100% guilty,” he says today, still standing by the testimony that shattered a family and uncovered a chilling truth.
At the time, A.J. didn’t understand the magnitude of his words. He was just a frightened little boy describing what he’d seen. What investigators first believed to be a tragic accident soon revealed something much darker—because of A.J.’s quiet, heart-wrenching courage.
The tragedy unfolded on a brutally hot August day in 2007. Amanda Lewis, then 27, had come home from an exhausting night shift at the hospital. She told police she lay down to rest before taking her two children, Adrianna and A.J., out to buy school supplies. When the children asked to go outside, she said yes—on the condition that they avoid the pool.
Minutes later, A.J. returned, his words haunting: “Mama, Adrianna is in the pool.” Thinking he meant she was playing nearby, Amanda glanced out the window—only to see A.J. frantically reaching into the water.
She ran outside. Adrianna, just 7 years old, was floating facedown, motionless. Amanda pulled her out, screamed for help, and held her daughter as emergency crews arrived. Despite being rushed to the hospital by helicopter, Adrianna never woke up.
Amanda kissed her daughter one last time and whispered goodbye. “I knew right then my baby was gone,” she told investigators.
Initially, the tragedy looked like a devastating accident. But then A.J. began to talk.
His voice was soft, but the words were unshakable. Adrianna had misbehaved, he said. Their mother got angry. “She threw her in the pool,” he explained. “She dunked her… and put her hand over her face.”
To help the adults understand, A.J. drew a picture: stick figures, one lying still in the water, one standing by, another far away by a tree. He labeled it simply: “she did” and “too bad.” When asked what the words meant, he replied, “It means Adrianna died… and it was scary.”
That single drawing and his unfiltered truth changed everything.
Amanda Lewis was convicted of first-degree murder and child abuse. She received a life sentence with no chance of parole. And A.J.—the little boy who had spoken when no one else could—slipped quietly into a new life.
Now, for the first time in nearly two decades, he’s speaking again.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, A.J. reflected on that moment in court. “No one told me what to say. I just told them what I saw. I was scared… but relieved when it was over.”
He recalls the pain, the confusion, and the trauma that filled his early years. He remembers the unpredictable outbursts, the fear that came without warning. “Sometimes it just came out of nowhere… we never knew what would set her off.”
Today, he lives with an adoptive family who gave him what he never had: love, safety, and peace. He’s never looked back. The court forbade contact with his mother, and he’s never tried to reconnect. “It’s better that way,” he says. “Bringing any of it back would only open old wounds.”
Even now, speaking about it is hard. “It was heartbreaking… she’s still my mother. But there was also a part of me that felt relief. Like maybe, finally, it was over.”
His decision to speak then — and now — has never been about revenge. It was about truth. About honoring the sister he lost. About breaking a cycle that nearly destroyed him.
“I still carry her with me,” A.J. says. “Every single day.”
