Heartless Grandparents Tortured 12-Year-Old Orphaned Grandson to Death | the Chronicle

On February 3, 2020, police found a 12-year-old boy dead at a house on Buffalo Drive in West Yellowstone, United States.. His grandparents and uncles, with whom the miner lived, said he himself suffered the injuries that led to his death and this raised the suspicions of the investigators which were confirmed by the analysis of the experts. After the autopsy, they determined that he died of blunt trauma to the back of his head.

He was called James alexander hurley and when his parents separated, he stayed with his father and his mother moved to Texas. In 2018, his father passed away, so Alex left to live with his paternal grandparents and three of his uncles, two who are still teenagers and another who is 6 years old. There his suffering began.

His grandmother told police the boy had problematic behavior even related to alcohol use and store theft. However, there is no criminal record of these incidents. They also said the child heard voices and injured himself several times, but there is no medical record to prove he was taken to a specialist for treatment.

They found shocking torture videos

As part of the investigation, they hijacked the whole family’s cell phones and after examining them, they found videos in which they appeared to be torturing him. On December 12, 2019, a video on the grandmother’s phone shows the boy do strong jumps while holding the buttocks area, crying and saying he had to go to the bathroom. You could hear her laughing at him.

A month later, they recorded him standing by the garage door, bending over with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth saying “no“and moaning. Two minutes later they filmed another one in which the boy is seen crying and saying:”Yes it hurts a lot“.

Several videos show the boy being forced to sit against the wall or garage door in a squatting position, jumping as punishment and even being hit with blunt objects.

Conviction of the murderers of James Alexander Hurley

Last year, the boy’s uncle, James Sasser III, 15, he was charged with intentional manslaughter. The boy agreed to a plea deal and a judge immediately ordered him to remain in juvenile detention until the age of 18. From there, he will be on probation until the age of 21. Despite the terrifying details of the case, he will not be on the list of violent offenders.

Patricia Batts, She is the wife of the child’s grandfather. He faces charges of intentional homicide, kidnapping, criminal negligence of children and strangulation of a family member. She pleaded not guilty, but prosecutors called for the death penalty for her.

On the other side is the grandfather, James Sasser Jr., who pleaded guilty last Friday to being one of the participants in the homicide and is expected to be sentenced to 100 years in prison. in the coming days.

Little is known about his aunt Madison Sasser, 18, who is also in custody and one of uncle’s friends, Gage Roush who is in jail because he appears in one of the videos beating Alex.

When the victim’s mother was contacted by detectives, she said she tried to contact her son on several occasions but the grandmother never let him.