Grundy Man Receives Five-Year Sentence In Child Abuse Case
The 11-year-old girl was forced to lick animal feces. At other times, her tormentor doused her food with laxatives and then blocked all access to the bathroom, court testimony revealed.
Dennis Roger McClanahan, of Grundy, Va., wasn’t punishing his stepdaughter for any wrongdoings, a judge decided. Instead, McClanahan simply wanted to demean and humiliate the girl, sometimes even snapping photos of the abuse.
Buchanan County Circuit Judge Keary Williams on Tuesday chose to go above sentencing guidelines, more than doubling the two-year, three-month maximum imprisonment usually reserved for two counts of child abuse.
McClanahan, 49, will serve five years in prison, with another five years of probation when released.
He never offered a reason for the abuse or for the photographs, Commonwealth’s Attorney Tamara Neo said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Humiliation seemed to be the only motive.
“That was certainly the sense of it that we got from the investigation and from the victim,” Neo added.
The abuse happened in early 2007, court documents show, when the girl was 11. She is now 13.
Social workers learned of the girl’s treatment and sheriff’s deputies charged McClanahan in November 2007.
In June, McClanahan pleaded guilty to two child-abuse counts.
McClanahan has rotated through Buchanan County courts since 1999, records show. He paid $236 in fines for a misdemeanor conviction for assault and threatening bodily harm. Court records also show two dismissed misdemeanor assault cases and a dismissed case of threatening bodily harm.
He is currently serving a one-year jail term for a 2006 grand larceny, court records show.
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Reader Reactions
This article is just the tip of the iceberg. The torture this child went through is ten times worse than it appears here. Social services became involved with this case because this man would not let the child go to school. She loved her mother so much and he used this as a way to taunt her that she would end up in foster care and never see her mother again. Her mother had a very bad drug problem during the time the abuse happened and was too out of it to protect her child. He also wouldn’t allow this girl to speak or touch her mother. He had a bulldog which he would let loose in the yard at night and make her run from it in the pitch dark while spraying her with a water hose until the dog would pin her down. There would be family gatherings with other children at their home and he would make her sit in a chair in the hot sun and watch the rest eat and drink. It was more than just this man guilty here. Everyone of these people who witnessed the things this monster did should be charged with accessory to child abuse. I can’t wait to read the article on what the other inmates do to him in prison. Word will get out. People who hurt babies get theirs.
What is up with these evil people that get their kicks and giggles from torturing children. I hope some of his cell mates in prison make him eat some s&*t
I have known Judge Williams for most of my life and have always thought him to be an honorable man.
This makes me feel even better about him.
Thank you Judge for taking the trash out.
I’m glad to read this creep got some time but like Nanafonda says it’s not enough compared to this child’s lifetime of pain. Kudos to Buchanan County for putting him behind bars and to Judge Williams.
Maybe if Buchanan County is lucky someone in jail will make this worthless individual eat some S#*t in jail and he can become someone’s new little friend.
Again, Kudos to the Judge for going beyond protocol.
Where is the childs mother when all of this was going on? Has she been charged also? I wish that the courts could do unto others as done unto them. In other words make him eat s_ _ t.
Words cannot describe this man, how horrible for a young girl to endure these things. It is illegal to do things like this to prisoners of war and yet this man did these things to a child! I can be almost positive that she will have repercussions of these acts much longer than the 5 years he was sentenced, her sentence is a lifetime of bad memories and counseling! This man should NEVER be allowed around children again!
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