STAUNTON, Va. (AP) — The Virginia couple who prosecutors say “systematically tortured” a boy for two weeks face 17 years in prison each after being sentenced.
The News Leader of Staunton reports 33-year-old Theodore Manna Jr. and 35-year-old Cecilia Burnette were sentenced Friday for injuries inflicted on Burnette’s 6-year-old son. Both had been convicted last year of malicious wounding.
Evidence showed the boy’s hands were routinely bound behind the back of his head while he was tied to a door. The evidence showed Manna then repeatedly beat the boy with a belt. During beatings, he was stripped naked and kicked in the stomach and testicles.
In 2011, Burnette was sentenced to eight years in prison for felony child abuse after her 8-month-old daughter died from being shaken to death three years earlier.
