A 68-year-old Northeast Texas woman who beat a severely disabled child at a day care has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
The Texarkana Gazette reported that Virginia Smith was sentenced Thursday in Bowie County. The former Opportunities Inc. classroom aid was charged with injury to a child after the 4-year-old boy's mother noticed bruising to the top of his head in December 2013.
Surveillance footage shows Smith strike the child more than 60 times with a shoe and kick him twice in the head. The boy suffered a stroke as an infant, which blinded him and left him with severe cognitive deficits.
Two workers who were in the classroom but didn't intervene or report the abuse pleaded guilty to similar charges. They were sentenced to probation.
