Children Recount Abuse At Hands of Mother's Boyfriend

The child’s voice was barely a whisper into the microphone as he described the beatings he and his siblings endured at the hands of their mother’s boyfriend over eight months.

The seven siblings told Floyd County Superior Court Chief Judge John “Jack” Niedrach that Gabriel Ragland liked to beat them after they emerged from the shower because he believed it hurt more to spank children when their skin was wet.

“He beat us with a metal spatula, with spoons, with anything he could get his hands on,” one of the children testified. “Even a wooden stick. He threw me against the wall, threw me into a door.”

Child after child described the eight months that their mother was with Ragland. They stayed in motel after motel as he stole their food stamps to buy drugs and they were forced to scrounge for food in dumpsters.

“You should be in jail for every breath of your life,” one of the children said to Ragland during sentencing. “Including your last one.”

Niedrach sentenced Ragland to 15 years in prison, the maximum allowed under a negotiated plea deal on six counts of first degree cruelty to children. Ragland will also serve an additional 25 years on probation as part of that plea deal. Rape and child molestation charges were dropped as part of that deal.

“You going to prison will never make up for what you’ve done,” another child told Ragland. “You threatened to kill me if I told anyone about what you did, threatened to kill my siblings.”

In the sentencing hearing, Ragland claimed that he never hit the children.

“I don’t know why they are doing this to me,” Ragland told the judge after pleading guilty. “These kids called me Daddy. I took care of them better than their own mother did.”

Ragland’s mother and siblings claimed the case against him was simply made up and that the children had been extensively coached.

Assistant Floyd County District Attorney Emily Johnson said the extensive amount of psychological testing proved significant damage had been done to the children.

“(Ragland) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Johnson told the judge. “He is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. But they got to see the wolf, they got to see the monster every day.”

Ragland has also never taken any responsibility for any of his actions, Johnson said. “There is deception in all of his answers, even today.”