How long would you have to know a man before you left your 23-month-old daughter alone with him for hours? Would you do it if you only knew him for 2 weeks? How about leaving her alone with him for the entire night? This idea sounds unthinkable, right? It sounds like a recipe for your worst nightmare come to life.
Unfortunately, for the case we’re covering today, the results were absolutely horrific. On July 2nd, 2016, 26-year-old Amber Bobo had just picked up her daughter, 23-month-old Ariana Smith, at her father’s home in Cape May County around 6:00 p.m. Ariana was an adorable toddler with big brown eyes and a happy smile.
Along for the nearly 3-hour round trip drive was 22-year-old Michael DeSporto of Manahawkin, Amber’s new boyfriend of roughly 2 weeks. Together, the three traveled back to Amber’s Gloucester City home. When they arrived home at approximately 8:00 p.m. at Bobo’s home at 108A South King Street, DeSporto asked if he could take Ariana to a nearby park because he wanted to get to know her better.
Even though this seemed like an odd request, Bobo agreed, and DeSporto and Ariana headed off to the park and were gone for roughly 10 to 15 minutes. When they returned, DeSporto asked Amber if she wanted to go watch the fireworks. Tired from the long commute, Amber declined and allowed DeSporto to take Ariana across the street from their home to watch the display.
And the pair were gone for approximately a half hour. Upon returning home, DeSporto put Ariana to bed in Bobo’s bedroom. Rather than changing her into pajamas, Ariana remained in her diaper and a black and white summer dress. Ariana always slept in her mother’s bedroom, as it was the only air-conditioned room in the home, and according to past weather reports, it was a fairly hot and humid July evening.
DeSporto and Bobo watched television in the living room until 11:00 p.m., after which Bobo became tired and joined Ariana in bed. Desporto stayed up watching television for a bit, falling asleep on the couch. Bobo awoke at approximately 7:00 a.m. the following day to find that Ariana was no longer in her bed. Ariana never left the bedroom alone and would always wake her mother first.
Concerned, Bobo got up and looked for her daughter, discovering her asleep on the couch wrapped in a blue blanket. Desporto was awake smoking a morning cigarette outside the front of her home. Rather than question Desporto, Amber Bobo returned to bed, falling asleep until about 9:00 a.m. When she awoke once more, Bobo returned to the living room where Ariana was still fast asleep on the couch.
However, when she unwrapped the 23-month-old from the blue blanket, she observed that Ariana was no longer dressed in the same black and white summer dress that she had gone to bed in. In fact, she was wearing a completely different outfit. Additionally, Bobo observed bruises on either side of Ariana’s forehead that were not there the night prior.
When Bobo confronted Desporto about the newly discovered bruising, he first claimed to know nothing about them, but then finally admitted that Ariana had fallen at the park the night before. Bobo suggested that they take Ariana to the emergency room, but Desporto talked her out of it. Instead, he suggested that they place ice packs on Ariana’s bruises and allow her to rest.
Bobo did not question Desporto about Ariana’s sudden change of clothing. In the late morning, Bobo filled up the bathtub in order to give Ariana a bath and noticed additional bruising on her back and private areas. One would think that a mother would have noticed such bruising sooner as the 23-month-old was still in diapers.
However, Bobo hadn’t because earlier that morning, Desporto had offered to change Ariana’s diaper for her. When questioned about these additional bruises, Desporto again denied causing them and once more talked Bobo out of taking Ariana to the emergency room because he was afraid of what people would think. At around noon, the trio set off to the Deptford Mall, which is roughly a 12-minute drive from Bobo’s home.
Although it was another very hot and humid day in New Jersey, Bobo put a hat on Ariana to hide the bruises on either side of her forehead. Shortly after arriving, Ariana began to throw up. Despite this, Bobo and Desporto continued to shop, returning home at around 2:00 p.m. in order to bathe Ariana.
While in the bathroom, Ariana continued to be sick. One would think that at this point a concerned parent would make an immediate trip to the emergency room. But Bobo didn’t do this. She didn’t even allow Ariana to rest. Instead, the trio headed back to the Deptford Mall and continued to shop until around 3:30 p.m. When they finally arrived home, Bobo first laid Ariana down on the couch, and then later moved her into her air-conditioned bedroom.
However, when the mother went to check on her daughter, she found that Ariana had gotten sick yet a third time, and her eyes were rolling in the back of her head, and she was completely motionless. Bobo again suggested that she wanted to take Ariana to the emergency room, with Desporto suggesting that she was just tired, and that they should let her rest.
When Bobo finally insisted, Desporto responded, “I’m never going to see you again.” End quote. At approximately 6:04 p.m., Bobo finally called 911. Paramedics arrived at her South King Street home to find Ariana completely unresponsive. She was transported to the Cooper University Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a subdural hemorrhage and cerebral edema, which required immediate brain surgery.
She also had bruising and swelling to her private areas, a complete fracture of her right leg, bruised lungs, and there was both waste products and blood present in her abdomen. Two days later, Ariana was examined for brain activity, once at noon and then again 6 hours later. When no brain activity was found during either exam, the decision was made to end life support, and 23-month-old Ariana Smith was pronounced deceased at 6:26 p.m.
on July the 5th. The following day, an autopsy was completed on Ariana’s remains. It was determined that her cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, with the manner of death ruled as homicide. De Sporto and Bobo were both arrested and faced charges in Ariana’s death. De Sporto was charged with homicide and aggravated SA, and was held on a $1.
5 million bail. And Bobo with endangering the welfare of a minor with a $100,000 bail. As part of her plea agreement to serve 3 years in prison, Bobo agreed to testify against De Sporto. Due to credit for time served, she had already spent over a year in jail by the date of her sentencing. Thus, she was eligible for parole.
However, Bobo’s parole was denied, and she was made to serve an additional 18 months in prison as the parole board felt she did not understand her criminal behavior as it related to the death of her daughter. They noted that she was in the beginning stages of understanding her behavior, and that more treatment was needed to help her gain insight.
However, Bobo’s sentence was up before her new parole date. She ended up serving just under 2 and 1/2 years total due to credits for good time and work programs. In March of 2019, a Camden County jury deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial with regards to Michael De Sporto’s case. The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office vowed to retry the case.
However, no result for Michael De Sporto in the New Jersey Department of Corrections inmate listing exists to this day. In his closing statements, De Sporto’s attorney, Jason La Bouf, noticed that he saw some of the jurors crying during the trial. He said that police had the wrong man because they focused their investigation solely on De Sporto because they believed Bobo, who he felt was lying to save her own skin.
La Bouf told jurors that state’s witnesses, especially Amber Bobo, gave testimony that was riddled with inconsistencies or outright lies, and that there was no DNA or other scientific evidence to support the theory that De Sporto was the person that committed the acts that resulted in the essay and harm that caused Arianna’s death.
He went on to note that the state of New Jersey did not meet its burden and speculated that the jurors who did want to convict might have been influenced by a strong desire to hold someone accountable. As there isn’t any additional information available with regards to De Sporto’s status, we’ll be keeping an eye out for updates.
If De Sporto is found guilty of the charges he’s been accused of, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since being released from prison, Amber Bobo has seemingly managed to stay out of trouble and has been working a series of service industry jobs. However, due to the recent scandal that was uncovered at Edna Mahan Women’s Prison, where Bobo served part of her sentence, she will be eligible for a payout for the time that she spent at that facility.
In April of 2021, the state of New Jersey agreed to pay almost $21 million to several inmates who allegedly were subjected to essay while incarcerated at the state’s only women’s prison, as well as payments to other former inmates. Additionally, inmates who suffered verbal bullying could apply for up to $4,500, and others who have yet to come forward with at least some evidence of essay would be able to receive up to $250,000.
Furthermore, anyone imprisoned in Edna Mahan from 2014 through the present could be eligible for more than a thousand dollars regardless of whether they were personally attacked or not. It was also announced that the prison would soon be closing and inmates would be transferred to different facilities after a series of cell extractions were caught on camera that resulted in inmates being severely injured.
Although this case took place in New Jersey, I do have a very small connection to it. I actually used to work with Amber Bobo. She worked in customer support in a role where frontline employees could call when they had questions. At the time, I was in a customer facing role and had spoken to her a few times by phone.
Although friendly, other aspects of her personality came off as extremely immature in a professional workplace. And that includes treating the company’s internal social media the same way a high schooler might interact on Facebook. This kind of stuck in my head and years later when I saw her name in a news article outlining what had happened, I immediately remembered who she was.
Our close friend also did time with Bobo at Edna Mahan. We spoke with her a little bit about it and she clarified a few things for us. Bobo in total did 27 months for her role in the death and essay of her daughter. Our friend, well, she did 30 months, three months more than Bobo, just for having contraband in her car.
According to her, Bobo would constantly dance in a suggestive manner around the prison, which speaks for itself. She also had the highest paying job of any inmate in the prison. She was doing admin work for the kitchen workers and was working in the officers dining hall. Apparently, nobody gets a job like that, even inmates doing life.
She’d also try to befriend everybody and everyone knew what she was in for. At no point was her safety at risk due to her crime and our friend doubted that she even faced any sort of confrontation regarding it. So, if you’re sitting here thinking that there’s going to be jailhouse justice, think again. So, with regards how to pronounce Edna Mahan, well, nobody can agree on this.
This is actually even true for some news broadcasts where we’ve actually heard them saying Mahan differently in the same clip. So, some say Mahan, some say Mahan, others just say man. But apparently the prisoners inside simply refer to it as Clinton. And the prison is also located on Freedom Lane, which is sort of ironic.
One last thing that our friend said about the prison was that even though it was rife with scandal that dates back decades that we covered earlier, our friend felt like it wasn’t entirely a big scary prison. Rather, it was more like a college campus or maybe like a locker room. One big dirty locker room. So, if convicted, Michael De Sporto is likely to face life in prison, but Amber Bobo only got 27 months.
