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West Virginia Grandmother Allegedly Molested Baby Relative With Her Ex-Boyfriend And Filmed It
The victim was "physically helpless and well below the age of 12," according to a criminal complaint.
A West Virginia grandmother and her ex-boyfriend confessed to sexually abusing an infant relative and filming the act, state police said.
Roseanna Thompson, 45, and Richard Wilson Smith II, 39, were arrested Wednesday for abusing a baby girl who is related to Thompson and was left in the couple's care in February 2015, according to WOWK 13 in Huntington. A criminal complaint states that the charges are “supported by physical evidence, photographic evidence, witness statements, and the defendant’s confessions” and that "the infant victim was physically helpless and well below the age of 12," according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
Morgan Smith, Smith's wife of several months, was the one who reported her husband and Thompson, a former friend and roommate. She had stumbled upon recordings of the crime while cleaning out their house to move.
She and a relative were looking through videos at the couple's home—which they formerly shared with Thompson—and popped one in the player. "I saw the first ten seconds, if that, of a video, saw what it was, that it was a baby, and I had to put the computer down and walk out," she told WSAZ in Huntington. She called state police who came with a search warrant and arrested her husband, but not before some unidentified civilians reportedly "got violent" with him. In total, state police found five videos.
Smith said she was already planning to end the marriage and told WSAZ, "I wasn't really surprised. I had an idea that it was at least in the back of his mind."
She said her husband had been physically and mentally abusive towards her, but she still wasn't completely prepared for what she found. "He had a lot of, in my opinion, perverted fantasies, and I thought they were just that—fantasies,” Smith told FOX 28 in West Virginia.
Thompson has been charged with incest, first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree sexual assault and use of minors in filming sexually explicit conduct. She is being held on $100,000 cash bond and due in court June 7.
Smith was originally charged with violating an order of protection and eight counts of possession of child pornography. But after further investigation, charges of first-degree sexual assault, first-degree sexual abuse and exploitation and filming of a minor were added. He's being held on $310,000 bond.
Smith's wife said she's in the process of having her marriage annulled.
"I hope there's no other kids that they touched. Having been molested when I was a kid myself, I know that damage that it can do," she told Fox 11 News.
State police said there is no evidence the couple molested any other children.
[Photo: WCHS/WVAH and West Virginia Regional Jail]
