(Left image: Samuel Wilson/Bozeman Daily Chronicle via AP; right image: Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office)
A grandmother who subjected a 12-year-old boy to a campaign of abuse is going to prison for the rest of her days.
Patricia Batts, the grandmother of the victim, James Alexander “Alex” Hurley, 12, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for deliberate homicide. She pleaded guilty in May.
Prosecutors in Gallatin County, Montana, said she subjected the child to a brutally hostile environment.
“You said he will be safe, so I trusted, you know—I [censored] trusted you Trish,” Alex’s aunt Joanna Marks said, according to KBZK.
“How could you sit back and watch as well as have such a huge hand in your own grandson’s life being tortured and taken at such a young age,” another relative said.
Hurley’s mother, Alicia Davis, declined to publicly read her statement to Batts.
“I just hope she gets what she gets,” Davis said.
Batts herself spoke at the sentencing.
“I regret not being the grandmother Alex should’ve had,” Batts reportedly said.
Not only did Batts’ husband, James Sasser Jr., previously get 100 years in prison for deliberate homicide, but authorities also charged the couple’s teenage, minor son, and daughter Madison Sasser, who had recently turned 18 when Hurley was found dead at the family home on Feb. 3, 2020.
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The teenage uncle, widely identified in reports as James Sasser III, took a plea deal for deliberate homicide, getting juvenile detention and some adult probation in return. Madison Sasser received probation in exchange for testifying against her parents if it ever came to it.
A fifth person, Gage Roush, was charged with striking Hurley with a wooden paddle, for which this defendant received a five-year deferred sentence.
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Batts reportedly admitted her son killed Hurley by striking him with a wooden paddle, that she facilitated the attack, created the hostile environment in which her son could freely abuse Hurley, and that she did not seek medical care for the child, according to The Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped the negligent homicide charge against Madison Sasser, who pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping.
She witnessed the parents punch, slap, and kick Hurley, saw the couple put him in chokeholds, and deprive him of love and attention, her attorney, Elisabeth Montoya said, according to The Daily Chronicle.
This was “a family that resorted to and normalized violence, torture, intimidation and fear in their kids,” the lawyer said.
She said Madison Sasser’s life at home “was a war zone.” Montoya maintained her client was immature for her age and regretted what happened to Hurley.
“Alex was the enemy. And Madison’s parents were the generals. And the other kids in the household … were soldiers,” the attorney reportedly said.
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