Therese Apel

The Clarion-Ledger

MCCOMB - A 23-year-old man is facing child abuse charges after videos he allegedly recorded show him slapping and punching a child, pulling her by her hair and body slamming her on a bed.

Alex Mead’s bond was set at $140,000 after Pike County sheriff’s investigators initially charged him with 27 counts of felony child abuse.

(See the 10-count indictment at the end of the story.)

The indictment, Chief Deputy Greg Martin said, is on eight counts of felony child abuse and two counts of abuse of a vulnerable person. The child's mother told reporters that the child uses a breathing tube and a wheelchair because of a rare brain disease.

The indictment alleges that the abuse took place between January 27 and February 10 of this year.

In the video obtained by The Clarion-Ledger, the man alleged to be Mead sits the child in his lap, points at the camera, then slaps her in the face and says, "How'd that feel?"

Then he takes her by the jaw and neck area, slams her on bed and says again, "How'd that feel, huh?"

At one point he looks full-face into the camera and says, "I'm an a**hole, I know."

He then picks the child up by her ponytail and puts her face in the camera, then grips her by the jaw and says, "You're not going to cry?" Then it appears he bites her ear.

She begins to cry, and he strikes her on the top of the head twice with his knuckles, and she falls off his lap headfirst. Picking her up upside down, he puts her back on the bed and cuts off the camera.

According to court documents used to get a search warrant, at least six other videos show Mead punching and slapping the girl, choking her, pulling her hair and biting her ear.

The indictment says he also attempted to smother the child by holding her mouth and nose closed, and on another time he choked her. He also allegedly lifted her by her neck on multiple occasions, and the indictment says he also bit her on the face and punched her in the head.

Count seven alleges that Mead kicked the child in the face. Count nine alleges he slammed the child against things by her hair.

The girl’s mother told the Enterprise-Journal's Justin Vicory that she discovered the videos when she searched Mead’s phone. Her name was withheld to protect the child’s identity.

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow @TRex21 on Twitter.