A Wausau woman will spend the next five years in prison, for allowing her her live-in boyfriend to rape her 9 year-old daughter last fall. Judge Greg Huber sentenced the 32 year-old woman to also serve five years on extended supervision. She cannot have contact with her daughter or two young sons unless approved by social workers. “Your daughter had the right to expect that her mother was going to be there to protect her and you were not” Huber said. “And it was intentional refusal of you to acknowledge what the facts were.” The woman must register as a sex offender. Her name is not being publicly released because the daughter is a rape victim.
The woman denied that she found Bryan Hearron lying in bed with the girl, defense attorney Paul Goetz said. The mother told police she knew it was wrong for Hearron to have sexual contact with the girl but did not report because she needed Hearron for financial support. “You basically fed her to the wolves,” Huber said. Hearron is charged with raping the girl. He claimed he was criminally insane at the time and is being evaluated to see whether he can use an insanity plea at trial. “I was in the wrong for not protecting my child,” the woman said before she was sentenced. She wept throughout the hour long sentencing hearing. “I am truly remorseful and I cry every day for her.”
Prosecutors said the woman had several chances to report the sexual assault and remove her children from a house that did not have electricity and was full of animal feces. The mother also let Clyde McCollum Junior, a sex offender previously convicted of assaulting a young girl, move into the house. He claimed he was in love with the girl and bragged that the two planned to run away, get married and live on a farm. “She does nothing to protect this child,” deputy district attorney Theresa Wetzsteon said. “Her priority has never been her children.” McCollum is charged with 75 counts of possessing child pornography. He will enter a plea and be sentenced May 27th.
The victim is living with other family members and suffers from nightmares and flashbacks, ADA Wetzsteon said. The girl is quiet and withdrawn and cannot trust adults. “Every parental figure the child has had in her life has failed her,” Wetzsteon said. “The child’s mother has failed her.”