Stepmom ditched typical 'open palm' to whip 7-year-old girl with belt after child claimed punishment 'didn't hurt': Cops

Inset: MaCayla A. Johnson (West Virginia Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation). Background: The Randolph County Sheriff's Office successful West Virginia (Google Maps).

A 24-year-old stepmother successful West Virginia is accused of abusing her stepdaughter, allegedly beating the 7-year-old with a loop aft the kid said her punishment did not hurt.

MaCayla Ashton Johnson was taken into custody and charged with 1 number of child abuse by a genitor oregon guardian creating a important hazard of bodily injury, tribunal records show.

A Randolph County Schools worker contacted the region sheriff's bureau connected Sept. 15 to study imaginable maltreatment of a student, according to a report from The Inter-Mountain, a section quality website.

The worker said the victim's begetter had called and said determination had been "an incidental the evening earlier that 'went excessively far' and helium wanted to fto her cognize earlier the teachers noticed."

The begetter reportedly said that portion Johnson was punishing his girl for not listening, the kid stated that "it didn't hurt." Johnson past "commanded that [the victim] should consciousness symptom and grabbed a belt."

A schoolhouse worker aboriginal observed bruises connected the girl's arms, manus and little backmost and referred the substance to Child Protective Services, the paper reported. The sheriff's office asked the worker to photograph the victim's injuries and guardant them to investigators.

In an interrogation with detectives, Johnson allegedly admitted to hitting the kid with a belt, saying she typically spanked the miss with an "open palm," but she had "been going done a lot" aft the decease of a household subordinate and felt "bombarded," according to a report from Weston, West Virginia-based CBS affiliate WDTV.

She besides acknowledged disciplining the miss with a loop connected 2 erstwhile occasions, explaining that she would "only usage astir 4 to 5 inches of the extremity of the loop other the buckle end," the presumption reported.

Johnson reportedly described the kid moving betwixt the toilet and bathtub during the incidental and asked the victim, "If [the] punishment don't hurt, wherefore are you warring it?"

Asked however the kid sustained bruises connected her arms, hands and back, Johnson allegedly said the marks were from the miss attempting to artifact the loop strikes, Morgantown, West Virginia-based vigor presumption WAJR reported.

Johnson appeared successful tribunal connected Oct. 17 and pleaded not blameworthy to the maltreatment charge. She is being held astatine the Tygart Valley Regional Jail connected a $2,000 cash-only bond. It was not instantly wide erstwhile Johnson was scheduled to marque her adjacent tribunal appearance.

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