Inset: Tenika Draper (Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Spartanburg County Courthouse (WYFF).
A 27-year-old woman in South Carolina will spend decades behind bars for severely abusing her 8-year-old stepdaughter physically and emotionally with allegations that included forcing the child to eat animal feces and feeding the child laxatives she was told were candy gummies.
Seventh Judicial Circuit Judge Grace Gilchrist Knie on Wednesday ordered Tenika Draper to serve 35 years in a state correctional facility, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
The judge handed down the sentence after Draper pleaded guilty to 20 counts of unlawful neglect of a child and two counts of obstruction of justice. Following her incarceration, Draper will have to complete an additional five years of supervised release.
The felony cases against Draper’s three co-defendants — Ian Tatro, Trina Draper, and Ryan Dezotelle — are still pending. Authorities identified Tatro as the father of the victim, Trina Draper as the victim’s step-grandmother, and Dezotelle as the victim’s step-uncle.
Authorities originally went to a residence in Wellford on Sept. 2, 2022, in response to a call from the Department of Social Services for assistance with a child abuse investigation, the sheriff’s office said in an email to Law&Crime. The child welfare agency was alerted to the possibility of child abuse by an anonymous source.
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“Upon arrival, deputies were informed by the DSS caseworker that she had been out to the home several previous times to investigate, but the adults at the home had hidden the victim from her,” the sheriff’s office said.
Upon arriving at the home, deputies found four adults and four children. Deputies said the oldest child had “a noticeable limp and temporary tattoos covering multiple visible bruises on both legs.”
The family members allegedly explained to deputies, in separate interviews, that they had recently moved down south from Vermont, Columbia NBC/CW affiliate WIS reported
The stepmother allegedly admitted to putting makeup on the child’s legs in an effort to cover the bruises once child welfare agents started visiting the residence.
The children were then taken into emergency protective custody by the DSS, the sheriff’s office said, while the oldest boy was transported to a hospital “due to the extent of the bruising and blood loss concerns.”
“The victim was interviewed at the hospital by medical personnel and one of our SVU investigators, where more detailed information was discovered,” the sheriff’s office said. “After that initial medical exam, the victim was evaluated again by a forensic doctor later last month, who stated the victim clearly met the criteria for a medical diagnosis of child torture. In forensic interviews at the Children’s Advocacy Center, the victim gave detailed and credible disclosures of multiple instances of abuse by various means from all four adults in the home.”
During court proceedings immediately following the arrests, prosecutors said that when the victim was rescued from the home, she said, “This is the best day of my life.”
Prosecutors also said that Tenika Draper forced the victim to eat “cat poop and cat treats” and eat gummy laxatives that “she thought were candy.”
More direct physical abuse is also alleged to have occurred – including being sat on; being beaten with boards, cords, and frying pans; being forced to stand in a garbage can; being placed in “hypothermia baths;” being forced to stay in the closet for long periods of time and sleep there; and being forced to kneel inside wooden crates.
The girl was not allowed to use the bathroom, prosecutors said, adding that she was forced to clean up her own waste and at least once had her face rubbed in the carpet when she failed to sufficiently cleanse the area.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
