Grandparents & uncle of boy ‘systematically tortured and beat him to death’ before body was found in living room
THE grandparents and uncle of a 12-year-old boy have been charged after allegedly “beating and torturing him to death”. James Sasser Jr. and Patricia Batts were arrested along with their 14-year-old son after sheriffs found James Alex Hurley dead in the living room of their Montana home early this month. Court documents say police found […]
THE grandparents and uncle of a 12-year-old boy have been charged after allegedly “beating and torturing him to death”.
James Sasser Jr. and Patricia Batts were arrested along with their 14-year-old son after sheriffs found James Alex Hurley dead in the living room of their Montana home early this month.
Court documents say police found video evidence that Hurley had been abused in the home, where he lived with his grandparents and their children, including a 14-year-old son, Hurley’s uncle.
Hurley had been sent to live with the couple by his mother following the death of his father in 2018.
Sasser claimed that on February 2, Hurley and his uncle had begun fighting while he was asleep.
Batts said she fell asleep while watching the Super Bowl and woke up to find the pair squabbling.
She said she then found Hurley’s body on the floor of her living room on February 3.
An autopsy conducted at the Montana State Crime Lab the following day found Hurley’s preliminary cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the back of the head.
Batts said that, in the course of the February 2 argument, her son had hit Hurley with a paddle, but she denied that he hit him in the head.
Hurley was five foot three inches and weight 103 pounds, while his uncle was six feet and weighed 300 pounds.
EVIDENCE OF TORTURE
The family claimed Hurley had been “suicidal”, “erratic”, and “hearing voices” and that on one occasion in January he had deliberately tried to harm himself, but police found no evidence that they had sought medical or psychiatric help for Hurley at the time.
A criminal complaint said that detectives watched videos of the family seemingly torturing Hurley, forcing him to do prolonged physical exercise and stand in front of a fan wearing only his underwear.
It also said that food in the home had been kept in locked cupboards to stop Hurley accessing it.
All the suspects have been charged with one count of deliberate homicide, the 14-year-old as a minor.
Batts and Sasser appeared in Gallatin County Justice Court on Thursday.
Bail was set at $750,000 and $500,000 respectively, prosecutors having said that Batts was “more culpable” in the boy’s death.
The pair are yet to enter pleas and have requested public defenders.
They face life in prison if convicted.
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The 14-year-old appeared in youth court on Wednesday and his bail was set at $500,000.
He is being held in a juvenile detention center in Billings.
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