TYLER, Texas — A Smith County woman has been found guilty of abusing her adopted twin teenage sons in 2019 following a four-day trial and hours of jury deliberations.
Cheryl Layne, of Whitehouse, who is a nurse practitioner, was charged with four counts of injury to a child with the intent to cause bodily injury in September 2019.
Her trial began Tuesday and jurors started deliberating around 11 a.m. Friday. They returned almost six hours later to convict Cheryl Layne of injury to a child.
Judge Austin Reeve Jackson said the sentencing phase of the trial will begin Tuesday morning. The defense asked for the jury to be polled to see if that was each of their verdicts, and each of them raised their hands that it was.
She and her husband, Mark Layne (a Tyler Police Department officer at the time), were both arrested in September 2019 after the 13-year-old twins reported being abused by their adopted parents to a school resource officer.
Mark Layne has not yet been indicted (formally charged) in this case and has had no court dates.
The arrest affidavit details allegations of abuse, including beating the children with an archery arrow, a belt and their hand and making them eat out of the trash. The document states the children showed bruising and redness.
On Thursday, Cheryl Layne took the stand, admitting she hit one of the twins with an archery arrow, but she claimed it was reasonable corporal punishment.
Cheryl Layne said she had to use corporal punishment in the past with all her children by using a belt, a fly swatter, a spoon, grabbing them by the ear, or by something that was handy.
During closing arguments Friday, Smith County Assistant District Attorney Emil Mikkelsen brought up part of her testimony, in which she agreed she had left belt marks on her kids before. He also raised the question of how you get an arrow mark bruise without getting hit with an arrow.
He called this punishment disturbing because the twins were take out of an already troubled household, which is why they were fostered, then adopted by the Layne family.
"They deserve justice, and you’re the only one who can give it to them. They told the truth, they asked for help," Mikkelsen said to the jury. "Are they going to get it? They’re the kind of people that people don’t believe foster kids. Liars."
Defense attorney Beau Sinclair told the jury Cheryl Layne’s punishment was within reason for the twins’ behavior.
The defense claimed evidence from the start of this investigation was flawed, adding witness testimonies are inconsistent. He added that Cheryl Layne used an arrow with an intent of corporal punishment, not abuse.
"She had to look at you in the eye. And she told you, this was reasonable disciple as she went through all these things. This was reason discipline. Yeah, I did that, but that was reasonable discipline," Sinclair said. "These were teenagers who needed a loving and firm hand."
The state used the arrow to show the jury the “whooshing” sound --- a sound they said is what the twins heard when she hit one of them. The prosecution disagreed with the defense saying all the witnesses corroborated the story the twins testified in court on Wednesday.
Cheryl Layne on Wednesday told the court the accusations made against her hurt because they were coming from her own sons. She also denied that the twins were treated like slaves.
She added that all her kids had more chores than others due to the fact that there were so many of them in one household.