A Dallas man with ties to the Dayton and Kenefick area, Billy Gene Shook III, 54, will spend the rest of his natural life in prison for the continuous sexual abuse of his stepchildren.
During his trial that begin earlier this week and was held in the 253rd State District courtroom of the Honorable Judge Chap Cain, jurors heard testimony from Shook’s three stepchildren regarding his grooming them in their adolescent years before initiating sexual acts in their pre-teen and teen years. He met the children’s mother in 2000 and moved the family to the Dayton area, where the sexual violations began.
“He started sexually assaulting the oldest daughter, then the second daughter and finally the son. He beat them, verbally abused them and sexually abused them,” said Liberty County District Attorney Jennifer Bergman. “There were no red flags in his criminal history before then.”
Eventually, around 10 years ago, the stepson made an outcry to his mom and sister. The crime was reported to the sheriff’s office but the investigation languished for a few years.
“In 2018, the daughters moved out of state and they reached out to the sheriff’s office and the district attorney’s office to see if there was any progress on the case,” Bergman said. “It became a priority.”
In 2019, Shook was indicted by a Liberty County grand jury on two counts of Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Young Child and one count of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. He has been held in the Liberty County Jail on a $100,000 bond since January 2019.
In January 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began, causing prosecution of all criminal cases across the state to be delayed for several months.
“This was one of the oldest cases the Liberty County DA’s office had. After the pandemic, we got it on the trial docket and pushed for it to be prosecuted,” Bergman said.
Earlier this week, the two of his three stepchildren were flown in from the Pacific West coast and Illinois to join the third sibling who lives in the area, and they faced their abuser, telling the grand jury how Shook raped them, forcing them to perform oral sex and forcing one daughter who was impregnated with Shook’s child to have an abortion.
“Everyone in the courtroom was moved by hearing their stories,” Bergman said.
The successful prosecution of the case and the subsequent life sentence without the eligibility of parole means that Shook will never again walk the streets as a free man.
“The cases were severed. We prosecuted him for the worst of the three, and he got life. The other two cases won’t go forward, but he will die in prison,” Bergman said.
I don’t understand why prosecutors won’t move forward with the other two cases. I mean I don’t care if he won’t set foot outside of prison walls already for what he has been convicted on. ALL 3 children deserve to have justice against this man not just the one. I’m happy for the one to finally get justice but it should be justice for all 3 cases!! I never will understand bs like giving pedophiles breaks on sentencing or not trying the cases for all victims or charging for every crime against the children instead of just this one or that one. That’s why there are so many repeat offenders and an un-Godly and disgusting huge increase in those committing such horrific acts against children because the consequences are disgustingly minimal at best. If we are to protect the children then we have to charge and convict for all sexual crimes against all the children victims of these sick and evil pedophiles and not co ti is giving them jist a slap on the wrist or only charging and convicting them for only some crimes against some children!! This justice system needs to take the word justice out of its name until it actually seeks justice for all victims and not just some!
It isn’t to give them a break. Lots of things can happen during a trial, so they are making sure that if something does happen that they have the next case to bring against him so he doesn’t walk free. That’s just my understanding.
*and not continue to give
I’d love to see all these Child molesters get executed. You rehabilitate child molesters.
You can’t rehabilitate child molesters
And yet there’s a 5x convicted child rapist living in Dayton that has a permit to enter family homes to do handyman work. The system is broken.
Thank you for this article. I would have loved to see him charged , convicted and sentenced for every crime. But the goal was reached. He can never hurt anyone again.
Thankyou Mrs. Bergman for putting this animal where he belongs. Kind of funny that Logan Pickett couldn’t get him prosecuted.
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