Close Family Friend Found Guilty of Child Abuse After Toddler’s Parents Noticed Offhand Comment and Checked Security Cams

A Virginia woman who was found guilty on 17 charges connected with the abuse of a toddler for whom she was hired to babysit has been sentenced.

Carly Webb will serve 12 months in jail with three years of probation after she is released, according to WDBJ-TV.

Webb’s March 13 sentencing covered one count of felony child abuse. Four years of the five-year sentence were suspended. Webb was sentenced on five misdemeanors of assault and battery, which will run concurrently with the felony sentence.

“We have all left the courtroom feeling very pleased with the judge’s ruling and the sentence that he handed down this afternoon to the defendant in this case,” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Stacey Stickney said.

“From the very beginning, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office prosecuted this case very aggressively with both misdemeanor and felony charges.”

Webb had been found guilty on 17 counts in October 2025, according to WDBJ.

Security footage documented the abuse of the child from October 2023 to January 2024, when the child was between 19 and 23 months old. Testimony was presented by the child’s mother, identified only as Madison, and the father, identified as Tyler.

“Madison and Tyler told the court Webb was a close family friend and they trusted her completely when they hired her to watch their child,” WDBJ reported.

The parents said they did not review the footage until an offhand comment made them concerned.

“The state told the court the child sometimes went up to 21 hours without food or water while in Webb’s care,” the station reported.

“The state argued that the child, due to her age, could not communicate what was happening to her,” the station reported

The station said that some parts of the surveillance video showed Webb throwing out food and drink that Madison had prepared for the child.

Webb, however, often ate in front of the child.

Video captured Webb “kicking, hitting, or taunting her, calling her a vulgar name, like “an effing b” and even pretending to shoot her with a toy gun while the child cried,” the station reported.

Carly Webb was handed a nine-year sentence during a hearing Friday afternoon, but all but one year was suspended. After serving her time, Webb will be on probation for three years.https://t.co/IfOLEcxtO5

— ABC 13 News – WSET (@ABC13News) March 13, 2026

“When I saw the videos, I couldn’t believe it,” Tyler said. “Thank God we had the cameras.”

The defense said Webb’s actions did not meet the legal standard for abuse, since “the child never sustained visible injuries and that no medical reports indicated malnutrition or developmental delay.”

Bedford County Judge James Updike, however, said that despite 47 years as a judge, he had never seen so much abuse on video and called the sitter’s actions “a pattern of cruelty and neglect.”

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