Main image: the house where two girls were kept captive by their father in Wichita, Kansas. (Google Maps); inset: Thomas Gatewood appears in a booking photo (Wichita Police Department).
A Kansas father has been convicted of killing his 8-year-old daughter by stomping her to death last spring.
On Thursday, Thomas Ross Gatewood, 52, pleaded no contest to nine of the counts against him, including one count of felony murder in the first degree, two counts of kidnapping, three counts of aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated child endangerment, and one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness.
Originally arrested on 11 counts, he also faced charges of child abuse.
Content warning: extreme child abuse
On May 8, 2023, police found Jeanetta Yvonne Gatewood, 8, unresponsive and not breathing at her family’s residence on North Oliver Street in Wichita. She was pronounced dead at the scene. In late June 2023, the Wichita Police Department arrested her father.
A formal complaint obtained by Wichita-based NBC affiliate KSNW offers only threadbare details about the horrific case, including how the defendant did “unlawfully and knowingly torture, cruelly beat, cruelly strike or cruelly kick a child.”
The complaint went on to allege Gatewood did “unlawfully take or confine a person, to-wit: Jeanetta Y Gatewood, accomplished by force, threat or deception, with the intent to hold Jeanetta Y Gatewood to inflict bodily injury or to terrorize said Jeanetta Y Gatewood or another, and did inflict bodily harm upon Jeanetta Y Gatewood.”
Authorities later elaborated on the grim circumstances.
Well before May 2023, Gatewood abused and tortured Jeanetta and her older sister for months, if not years, on end, prosecutors allege.
Though the family moved into the house on North Oliver in 2018, Gatewood isolated the girls so well that neighbors did not even know he had children, authorities say, according to The Wichita Eagle.
The girls did not attend school, prosecutors say. Nor had they ever visited a doctor or dentist since they were born. And, the paper reports, Gatewood kept them petrified of the outside world with warnings they would catch COVID-19 or become poisoned by fentanyl. They were often locked inside their rooms.
Abuse in the home ran rampant but ultimately turned fatal when the defendant stomped on Jeanetta so hard that her heart ruptured.
An autopsy showed the girl had been consistently beaten during her too-short life, according to Hutchinson-based CBS affiliate KWCH. Jeanetta had a broken leg, broken ribs, head wounds, and other injuries that were in the process of healing — but had not healed properly because her father never allowed her to see a doctor. The children were kept hidden, at least in part, to cover up the abuse.
On Thursday, according to a courtroom report by KSNW, prosecutor Alice Osburn also presented evidence that Jeanetta was underweight, had been whipped, and was covered in bruises and scars.
“If you ever tell, I will beat you up,” the defendant allegedly told his oldest daughter.
Gatewood also tried to have the older girl admit she was the one responsible for Jeanetta’s death, prosecutors allege, according to the Eagle. The father wanted his surviving daughter to tell a tale about hitting her sister in the face with a hardcover book and causing her to fall and hit her head — but she refused. The truth was eventually revealed when Jeanetta’s sister was taken into protective custody.
Sedgwick County District Judge Jeffrey Goering and the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop child abuse charges and various other pending charges in another case in exchange for the no-contest plea, according to the Eagle.
Sedgwick County Jail records show the defendant has several active rape, sodomy, and child sex crimes charges.
Gatewood faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison for the murder charge. He also faces over 20 years in prison for the additional charges. Sentencing in the case is currently slated for April 25.
