An ex-con took his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter to a storage unit and filmed the events that transpired. He was busted after the mom decided to take a closer look at the man’s phone, discovering his crimes as she perused his disturbing photos. He’s since learned his fate.
David Coleman, a 38-year-old Nebraska man with a disturbing criminal record, was arrested after abusing his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter. Coleman took the child to a storage unit in Omaha, where he used his cellphone to film himself repeatedly harming the toddler. His crimes were only discovered after the child’s mother decided to peruse the photos on his phone, the Daily Mail reported.
What the mother saw prompted her to immediately call the police. As discovered on his phone, Coleman recorded himself repeatedly hanging the toddler with a pink scarf by her neck from shelving in the storage unit. As she struggled to breathe, Coleman continued his abuse, repeatedly choking the child until she fell unconscious, passing out from the strangulation — all while he recorded it.
The videotaped abuse resulted in evidence that a veteran law enforcement official called the worst she has seen, the Omaha World-Herald reported. In the footage from the storage unit, Coleman’s little victim is seen struggling to breathe as he choked her multiple times for a minute or more each time.
“The victim hanged by the neck, losing the ability to breathe and losing consciousness. The suspect [then] could be seen grabbing her roughly by the chest and lifting her with the ligature still tied to her neck to release [the] pressure just enough to allow her to breathe, gasp, cry and gurgle, before dropping her in a hanging position, again, only to restart the previous cycle,” according to a detective’s affidavit. Omaha Police Detective Alexis Boults also wrote that the incident “continued for five minutes.”
That same day, Coleman recorded himself strangling the toddler as she sat in her car seat, choking her with the same scarf. According to court documents, the scarf was bound around the child’s neck so tight, she couldn’t speak or even cry. “The victim can be seen on video turning red and blue in the face,” an Omaha detective wrote in a police report. “[She] appeared to try crying but was unable to because the ligature was pulled so tightly by the suspect to stop her from breathing, speaking or crying.”
After it was discovered that Coleman had repeatedly wrapped the scarf around a 2-year-old’s neck and hanged her several times as she lost and regained consciousness, he was arrested. After pleading on the reduced charges of two counts of child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury, Coleman was given the maximum sentence, jailed up to 52 years in prison.
Coleman, who also got hit with four years in prison for being a felon in possession of a knife, won’t be eligible for parole until he’s served at least 42 years of his sentence. “There was extreme violence here,” Douglas County District Judge Duane Dougherty explained when handing down the sentence. “When someone harms a child that age, or no matter the age, in that nature it’s as bad as it gets.”
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine echoed similar sentiments, saying that, in more than four decades as a lawyer, this case came as close to any as he has had that fit the definition of torture. “It’s beyond what anybody would think someone is capable of doing,” Kleine said. “As disturbing a child abuse case as we’ve ever seen.”
Although the child survived, it’s unknown how much lasting psychological damage was done to her. “It has changed this child’s life in ways we may never know,” Prosecutor Molly Keane, a deputy Douglas County attorney, said. “How she survived this torture is a mystery. But she did — luckily for her, luckily for her family, and luckily for this defendant. Because he would be charged with first-degree murder.”
Sadly, this “disturbing” child abuse case wasn’t the first time David Coleman had harmed a child or had a run-in with the law. In fact, Coleman was a “nine-time felon” and a convicted sex offender. In 2004, he was convicted of first-degree sexual assault of a minor, and he is listed on Nebraska’s sex offender registry. But, perhaps most shockingly, Coleman previously did time for breaking a child’s bones and burning them with a heating pad. He was released from prison for that crime only about 4 months before attacking the 2-year-old girl.
David Coleman, who blamed methamphetamine for both the violence and the videotaping of it, apologized during his sentencing hearing, claiming he was embarrassed and ashamed of his behavior. “I am mortified by these actions. It’s a struggle every day for me. I’m very sorry,” he said as if it’s new information that meth might turn you into a monster. Thankfully, he’s now right where he belongs: put away behind bars, where he can’t harm another child when he faces his daily “struggles.”
Let this be a lesson to us all. First and foremost, do not allow convicted child predators or drug users to be alone with your children. Secondly, just say no to drugs. I have no sympathy for anyone who harms a child after indulging in methamphetamine use. The dangers of drug abuse are well known. Although some would like us to believe it’s a victimless crime, stories like this one remind us over and over again that drugs pose a significant danger not only to the user but all of those unfortunate to be around them in their impaired state.
