‘Dad hurt me & my sister’: Wichita father sentenced for stomping 8-year-old to death

A Wichita father who abused his two daughters so mercilessly that one died in a particularly brutal attack last May will spend the rest of his natural life in prison, unless his sentence is altered on appeal.

Thomas Ross Gatewood received a life term plus additional time on Wednesday, but he can’t be considered for parole until he serves at least 70 1/4 years — well beyond the average life expectancy for a person who is already 52.

So far, he’s served 372 days of the sentence. That’s the amount of time he has already spent in the Sedgwick County Jail waiting for his criminal case to resolve. He has 14 days to file an appeal.

Gatewood pleaded no contest in March to one count of first-degree felony murder, three counts of aggravated battery, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated endangering a child and one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness.

The prison sentence caps one of the more horrific child abuse cases Wichita has seen in recent years. The girls, 8 and 9 when authorities learned of the abuse, were subjected for years to regular physical beatings and other attacks at their father’s hands, prosecutors say. He was their sole caregiver since 2021 and kept them so isolated at home that neighbors didn’t know they existed. He was careful to keep the girls away from places like schools and doctors’ offices where the abuse might be noticed and reported. The girls couldn’t play outdoors and were often held hostage in their rooms by make-shift locks fashioned from latches and screwdrivers. He kept them terrified of the outside world with tales of how they might catch Covid-19 or be poisoned by fentanyl.

In short, prosecutors say, Gatewood made sure they had no way out.

The abuse didn’t end until one of them wound up dead.

On May 8, 2023, 8-year-old Jeanetta Gatewood died after her father stomped on her at their east-side home, 626 N. Oliver, near Central. The stomping was so traumatic that it ruptured her heart, prosecutors have said.

After Jeanetta stopped breathing, Gatewood called 911. But he blamed her death on her then 9-year-old sister, telling police that Jeanetta had fallen and slammed her head on a desk after the older girl hit her with a hardback book during a fight.

The older girl later told authorities that Gatewood had ordered her to lie about how her sister died and that he threatened to beat her if she ever revealed the truth. She made the disclosure only after authorities promised her she would not be returned to her father’s home, according to testimony at Gatewood’s preliminary hearing last year.

Doctors who performed Jeanetta’s autopsy found broken ribs, a broken leg, a broken tooth, head wounds, head to toe bruising and pattern wounds indicating she had been whipped with an object. Many of the injuries were in healing stages but they didn’t mend correctly because she received no medical care, prosecutors have said.

When her older sister was examined, doctors found a broken pelvis, spine, ribs and teeth and evidence that she, too, had been whipped.

Gatewood has a history of violence or neglect with at least nine children — most infants and toddlers — and at least four women stretching back into the 1990s, court records show. Three of the children, including Jeanetta, died, although hers was the only one definitively tied to abuse, the records say.

Abuse described in the records include Gatewood “violently” grabbing and smashing a 3-month-old’s arms when the baby sucked its thumbs; a mother who suspected Gatewood of intentionally smothering her six-week-old; a woman who was burned, smothered with pillows, choked and locked in a closet; a child who was beaten with a belt on her back and legs because she didn’t learn to walk fast enough; a 19-month-old who was beaten and bruised; and various reports of strangulation, beatings, broken bones and other injuries.

Jeanetta’s mother told authorities Gatewood started physically abusing her and her older sister when they were a “couple of months old,” according to the records.

On Monday, Gatewood learned his fate but not before his surviving daughter and their mother told Sedgwick County District Judge Jeffrey Goering that they didn’t want him to ever be free again.

In a short but emotional letter titled “Because dad hurt me and my sister,” the surviving daughter recounted some of the abuse. A prosecutor, Atticus Disney, read it aloud in court because the little girl wasn’t there. The Eagle is not naming her because she is a minor and an abuse victim.

“I felt angry and sad a lot. I have memories of what dad did to me and my sister,” she wrote. “... I don’t want dad to get out of jail.”

Reading from her own letter, Brandy Van Osdel said she wished Gatewood could go to prison for “100 years without parole” and be kept in shackles and a “dark room without a bathroom.”

She told the judge she wanted justice not only for Jeanetta and Jeanetta’s older sister, but also for the four other children she had with Gatewood. The other children include an infant who died in 2006 in Minnesota under circumstances investigated by police, and three young children who were taken away in Oklahoma in 2009 and 2012 due to abuse.

Records indicate Van Osdel had previously given up her parental rights to both Wichita girls.

“He took six kids away from me. They had no fighting chance or decision, and neither should he,” Van Osdel said, reading from her letter. “ ... He does not deserve to see light of day ever again.”

When it was his turn to speak, Gatewood stood and delivered a minutes-long rant accusing his ex-wife of lying and abusing the girls, even though she had moved out of the house for medical reasons a few years before Jeanetta was killed. His ex-wife’s speech had visibly upset him to the point that one of his attorney’s had to calm him.

“She is just as guilty. If I’m guilty, she’s guilty,” he insisted angrily and told the judge he might have been neglectful in some ways, but not like he was being portrayed.

About his daughters, he said: “I love them both for the rest of their lives.”

When asked by the judge what sentence Gatewood deserved, Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Alice Osburn said he ought to serve back-to-back prison sentences for two of his convictions, one for each of his victims.

Defense attorney Jakob Ladanyi asked that the sentences all be served concurrently, or at the same time, since his punishment would already be lengthy.

In the end, the judge said Gatewood would be incarcerated for life with no parole for 51 1/4 years in connection with Jeanetta’s murder, plus an additional 19 years for a kidnapping charge tied to her older sister’s abuse. The prison terms Gatewood received for the other seven charges will be served concurrently to these two.

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