Wild New Development in the Case of a Woman Who Killed Her Stepdaughter in Hot Bath 48 Years Ago

In 1978, five-year-old Andrea Bernard died in what a coroner ruled an accident. For over forty years, her family carried the heavy weight of that sudden tragedy—until her brother came forward with a devastating confession. He had been forced to lie about the truth behind her death.

Nearly six weeks after arriving at a hospital with severe burns to half of her body after she was scalded in a hot bath at the family’s home in London, Bernard died from sepsis in July 1978. The coroner at the time concluded her death was a result of sepsis caused by the burns, and it was ruled an accidental death, Metropolitan Police said in a press release.

Fast forward to one Sunday in September 2022, when Bernard’s brother walked into a Croydon police station and told officers he had been harboring a crushing secret. From that moment on, everything changed.

Desmond Bernard, who was eight years old at the time of his sister’s death, confessed that his stepmother Janice Nix had killed Andrea by burning her in a blistering hot bath. Desmond explained that Nix had instructed him to lie about what really happened, and if he did, “she would never beat me again.” If he refused, he said Nix promised to punish the children by beating them and forcing them to eat cat food, according to the BBC.

His allegations triggered an immediate investigation, but detectives faced a near-impossible task. With the crime buried nearly fifty years in the past, key witnesses had vanished, and neighbors had either moved away or died.

Det. Con Fran Homer, from the Metropolitan Police’s cold case team, said that no hospital records had been retained and nothing was found in local museum archives related to Bernard’s death.

It wasn’t until the cold case team obtained a 16-page coroner’s report that included an account from Nix, which contained “startling differences” to the story she previously told.

According to authorities, when questioned as part of the 2022 police investigation, Nix provided a significantly different account of the events of that day. When asked to explain her discrepancies, she made no comment.

In February 2025, Nix was arrested at the airport upon her return to London from Antigua. Bodycam footage captured the moment Nix was escorted off a plane, arrested and told she was charged for the 1978 manslaughter of Bernard and cruelty to Desmond. Her mouth dropped open in sheer disbelief.

During the trial, Desmond testified that on that fateful day, Nix told him his sister was in trouble for not cleaning the house, BBC reported. He recalled hearing Bernard splashing, screaming and telling Nix the bath was too hot. He said Nix shouted back, “Get in the bath.”

Asked by prosecutor Kerry Broome why he lied, Desmond answered, “Because I didn’t feel protected. I just wanted it to stop.”

Nearly 50 years later, justice was finally served. A jury found Nix, now 67 with a head full off gray dreadlocks, guilty of manslaughter in relation to the death of Andrea Bernard and of child cruelty toward Desmond, Metropolitan Police announced.

“I don’t think she ever thought this would catch up with her,” David Malone, deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in London, said about Nix.

Nix previously wrote a memoir about her past as a notorious drug dealer known as Mama J. In 2021, she told the BBC how she turned away from a life of crime to become a probation officer, and even spoke about the difficulties she faced as an ex-offender in the workplace at a government select committee hearing.

“I felt that society was not forgiving,” said Nix, who remains in custody and will be sentenced at a later date. “Even though you try your hardest to show people that you have changed.”