BATON ROUGE - The trial of a mother accused of punching her child in the stomach prior to the two-year-old's death continued Tuesday. 

Lanaya Cardwell, 28, had faced a second-degree murder charge in the 2021 killing of her 2-year-old daughter, Nevaeh Allen. However, her murder charge was downgraded to second-degree cruelty to juveniles and other related charges. A jury last May convicted Cardwell's boyfriend, Phillip Gardner, of murder and hiding the girl's body in Mississippi.

It picked back up with witnesses testifying. In court, interviews were played where Cardwell's stepson, Gardner's son, was interviewed. Later in the trial, Gardner's daughter testified on the stand. She talked about living with the two of them and how she would spend time with Neveah, her stepsister.

While on stand in the interview, she had detectives play for jurors. Where she talked about going home that day, and finding the house door open, and that when she ran inside with her brother, her dad asked how they got in, and asked her where Neveah was.

In the interview, she talked about how Cardwell got mad at her daughter for touching her contact, saying that Cardwell hit the two-year-old twice.

On Tuesday, she demonstrated to the Jury on a doll where she said Cardwell hit her and said in court that it sounded like it, and it could've been more than two times.

During cross-examination, the defense attorneys noted that Cardwell was supposed to be at work at the time Allen was reported missing.

The prosecution also called up to the stands FBI agent David Borgetti, who played a role in the investigation. The FBI agent testified about his interview with Cardwell and some of the kids, saying a 3-year-old stepchild of Cardwell told investigators about a baby inside the woods.

His interview with Cardwell and Gardner, the night Allen was reported missing, was played to jurors. Cardwell can be heard asking Gardner why he was pinged in Slidell earlier that day.

During cross-examination, the defense agreed that Cardwell was cooperating during the interview.

Surveillance video showing Cardwell with the two-year-old, earlier that day, going to the store was shown to jurors as well. In an interview, Cardwell said she went there with her daughter to get her two Laffy Taffys and an apple juice.

Later in the trial, Cardwell's interview with Baton Rouge Police Department officer Sandra Watts was played in court for jurors, while Watts was on the stand. Cardwell denied hitting the baby in her stomach, saying she only popped her. Also mentioned in the interview was that Gardner would bring the kids to the woods in Mississippi, a spot he would go hunt.