An unforgettable act of strength

By Christie Pool
Staff Writer
christie@pickensprogress.com
I have been employed with this local newspaper for 30 years.
I started out as a reporter, covering everything from city council and school board meetings to an overnight ride-along with a sheriff’s deputy.
Along the way I’ve sat in court proceedings that have put away felons who committed assaults, burglaries and even murder. Last week I covered the sentencing of the couple who adopted a child and wound up abusing her physically and mentally in horrible, menacing ways. The child was made to stand in a bathtub for hours on end, carry wood from her home along a trail to a wood pile and back again, just for punishment. And she was beaten – hit with a closed fist by her adoptive father, a retired police sergeant from Arlington, Virginia, who was supposed to love her. And not only did her adoptive mother, a nurse practitioner of 16 years, not intervene, she participated in the abuse. This girl endured hours of abuse, from daylight to sundown. What the local prosecutor detailed in her summary of their crimes for which they plead guilty to was nothing short of vile.
But the story hasn’t ended with the couple going to jail, where they belong.
It has also become a story of resurgence and survival and my utmost admiration of the victim in the case – a then 11-year-old girl who showed up to Courtroom B last week and displayed more courage and fortitude and a composure that few adults could muster.
To stand in a crowded courtroom, look into a screen displaying the faces of the people who systematically broke your trust and speak up for yourself as she did required a strength that cannot be taught. And it won’t be something I’ll ever forget.
When this young girl took the podium before Judge B. Alison Sosebee, she did not flinch. She did not cry or raise her voice in anger or crumble under the weight of the suffering she endured at the hands of Roger and Sharon Stegall. Instead, she addressed them with an undeniable dignity—a stark contrast to the monstrous cowardice that landed her tormentors there. Thank God a neighbor spotted the abuse and reported it.
The details revealed by Assistant District Attorney Amber Robinson were horrifying: forced manual labor, cruel isolation, physical strikes, and a blood-stained dog leash recovered by investigators.
But their cruelty could not erase this child’s spirit on display in court last week. Even when physically dragged back to the house from which she tried to escape, she remained unbroken.
Last week, as both defendants watched via video from the Pickens County Adult Detention Center to hear their 20-year sentences, the power dynamic in that room shifted. The perpetrators were locked behind bars, stripped of the power they once held over a child.
Standing tall, however, in that courtroom, was the survivor—no longer a trapped victim, but a hero speaking for her own justice.
Rarely have I seen such pure resilience. This young girl did more than deliver a victim impact statement; she reclaimed her life, her voice and her future.
Her name was spoken throughout the court proceedings last week, but we don’t publish young victim’s names in the Progress. In this one instance I wish that wasn’t our policy because her name should be celebrated. Because, for me, her name is one I will always remember as meaning, “strength,” “resilience,” “perseverance” and “fortitude.” All names used by the judge, who said she was the “most articulate person to have ever stood at her lectern.”
Thank you, __, you showed everyone in that courtroom that day what true fortitude looks like.