Grandfather Sentenced to 100 Years for Role in Beating Death of Grandson

A Montana man has been sentenced Friday to 100 years in prison for the February 2020 death of his 12-year-old grandson James Alex Hurley, which was followed by accusations of child abuse, the Associated Press reported.

James Sasser Jr. previously pleaded guilty to felony counts of deliberate homicide, witness tampering and child endangerment and was sentenced to 120 years in prison, with 100 years for homicide and 10 additional years each for the other charges, which are set to be served concurrently, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

"I should have been a protector. I wasn't. I failed," Sasser Jr. said in a brief speech in court Friday. "I failed my kids, all of them. Their lives are destroyed, (Alex's mother's) life is destroyed...I deserve whatever you do."

The court proceedings painted a picture of an abusive home for the child that Sasser Jr. was only a part of, along with his wife, Hurley's grandmother Patricia Batts, as the driving force of the abuse, the Daily Chronicle reported. Similar arguments have been made against Batts in other cases that have been brought against other family members or people close to the family.

The 12-year-old was found dead of what was determined to be blunt force trauma in his grandparents home, where he had been living for about two years, the AP reported. He was also reportedly taken out of school months before his death.

At the trial, the prosecution showed evidence of the abuse, including several video and audio recordings from inside the home that depicted physical and verbal abuse of the child and evidence found by investigators that indicated Hurley had food withheld from him on multiple occasions.

Batts has pleaded not guilty to several similar charges that Sasser Jr. faced and is set to face trial starting in May. Hurley's then-14-year-old uncle admitted in youth court that he kicked and hit Hurley in the head in the 24 to 36 hours preceding his death, and plead true to deliberate homicide. He has since been sentenced to stay in a juvenile detention facility until he turns 18, at which point he will be released and be on probation until he is 25, the AP reported.

Sasser Jr.'s defense attorney reportedly told the court that the grandfather was also in an abusive marriage, and was threatened that if he left Batts, he would "never see his children again," and claimed that Batts lied to him about Hurley's actions when he wasn't around, telling him that the child was violent toward the rest of his family.

"He could not believe that the woman he'd been married to for so long repeatedly lied to him about horrible things, and that's the context in which these equally horrible things occur," defense attorney Colin Stephens said, according to the Daily Chronicle. "He should have ran...he should have been the protector, there's no question about that."

Update 3/4/22 6:30 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information.