Man sentenced to 10 life sentences for child sex abuse in East Texas

Darby Good
·2 min read
31

COOKE COUNTY, Texas (KETK) – A man was sentenced to 10 life sentences, one 10-year sentence and two 20-year sentences on Monday for charges related to events that happened in Cooke County and East Texas.

According to a release from the Cooke County District Attorney’s Office, David Michael Calhoun, was found guilty of five counts of sexual assault of a child, seven counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault strangulation. The jury took less than one hour before returning a guilty verdict, and another hour before returning with the punishment verdict.

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Evidence presented at court said Calhoun was caring for the children, who were his nephews and stepchildren, around 2017 when he began abusing them. A release said the abuse continued in Harleton, Jefferson and Athens.

“The prolonged period of torture that the defendant put the children through in this case is the worst abuse that I have ever seen,” Eric Erlandson, first assistant district attorney for Cooke County said. “The mental, psychological, and physical torture that they endured for the better part of six years in unimaginable. The resilience and strength that the children showed in this case is awe inspiring. They never gave up and showed tremendous courage from the very beginning.”

Pamela Miller with the APSAC Center for Child Policy described the abuse as almost indistinguishable from the type of torture POWs and political prisoners suffered during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

“The lasting legacy of this case is that evil will not prevail—even when things seemed
hopeless the children were determined to make their story heard,” Erlandson said.

Two other defendants have been indicted due to their connection to the case and are set for pretrial in April 2024. Five of Calhoun’s life sentences were ordered to run consecutively by the presiding judge.

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